Harry Quit His Job, but Can’t Let the Princely Perks Go
The news broke on his wife’s birthday. Prince Harry had filed a second lawsuit against the British government, over the removal of his elite, Scotland Yard security officers, back in 2020. The new claim is his second one against the Home Office, but, for the first time, Harry has named the Metropolitan Police as a defendant as well. The High Court confirmed the lawsuit to reporters and media outlets.
Rory Tingle, the Home Affairs correspondent for MailOnline, reported that the case, “will focus on a decision in January by the Royalty and VIP Executive Committee (RAVEC), which concluded that private individuals should not be allowed to pay for police to protect them.”
Basically, Harry is now reportedly suing for a wealthy person’s right to hire public police for their personal use. It doesn’t take a legal expert to know what a dead end that is. Not to mention tone deaf in the extreme.
If you’re just joining us, the man once known as His Royal Highness Prince Harry, second son of the next King Charles III, sixth in line to the British throne, was entitled to publicly funded armed police protection as a senior working member of the British Royal Family.
However, in 2020, Harry and Meghan announced on their own website, that, “We intend to step back as ‘senior’ members of the Royal Family.” Their own words, a resignation letter for all to see, reported breathlessly around the world.
As people often learn the hard way in life, when you quit a job, you lose all the perks that came with it. (Especially when you denigrate the top executives on the way out…)
That is a fact, hard as it may be for Harry, or his fans, to understand.
When that happened, RAVEC made the decision that as non-working royals living abroad, Harry (and his wife) would no longer qualify for taxpayer-funded, full-time armed police protection. (Reminder: most police officers in the UK are not armed, only select units, a very small percentage overall.)
Harry wants that full-time, elite armed police protection reinstated when he is in the UK. So in September 2021, Harry filed his first claim. That was recently granted the right to proceed, with limited evidence.
If his security is reinstated, Harry has offered to pay for it.
That’s reportedly the basis of the second lawsuit revealed Thursday. Harry would be fighting the very rule that prevents wealthy people from privately hiring a public police force for their own personal use. It’s perhaps the most entitled and arrogant case Harry could claim. “I want to be allowed to hire the police for myself!”
Imagine the strain on public resources, if every wealthy executive or celebrity, was allowed to siphon those police resources for their personal use. It’s the kind of thing Harry and Meghan seem to spend their time saying they’re against, as it definitely does not serve the common good. It doesn’t matter who is paying for it, someone would be depleting a public resource for personal use.
“Got an emergency? Sorry, the police are out with Harry and Meghan, Posh and Becks, George and Amal… etc, etc, etc!”
Royal police protection came under an intense spotlight more than a decade ago, in 2011, as Scotland Yard reviewed the royal security expenses. That review resulted in several lesser members of the family losing their police protection, including Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie of York. They were fifth and sixth in line to the throne when they lost that security.
Worth noting that as fifth in line to the throne at the time, Princess Beatrice was higher ranking than Harry is now, was a grandchild of the monarch, was still living in the UK, and would have been considered in the “direct line of succession.”
According to Matt Wilkinson, Royal correspondent at The Sun, Harry’s first case has already cost the UK taxpayer £90,094.79, from September 2021 to May 2022. That includes £55,254 on the government Legal Department and £34,824 on counsel. The case has continued past May, so fees will surpass £100,000. Defending this new lawsuit will cost the taxpayer even more.
In court filings the Home Office have asked that Harry repay those costs if his claim is denied, saying, “The public purse should not have to bear the cost of the conduct of the litigation and a claim which ought not to have been brought.”
The former head of Scotland Yard Royal Protection, Dai Davis, spoke to reporters after the lawsuit was revealed, saying it was “nonsensical” and “insulting” and felt “personal.” Davis also added, “Rather than seek a workable solution, he has taken this route which is fraught with issues.”
Davis is right, there is a clear, workable solution that I’ve written about before here.
Most high-profile, but private people in the UK, from London billionaires to the Clooneys, hire top, private security teams. These companies are often made up of retired or former protection officers. They are well-regarded, uniquely skilled officers with specialised backgrounds, who still have trusted contacts and links, allowing them to liaise with existing police units.
Harry can hire them right now. And, if Scotland Yard felt he was in imminent danger, they would then provide additional security.
In fact, RAVEC have said in court, that they are aware Harry held a ‘particular and unusual position’ and so security for the Duke of Sussex was ‘flexible’ and considered on a ‘case by case basis’ — in other words if there was a known threat, Harry would be provided appropriate security, just as any visiting dignitary would.
If Scotland Yard feels it’s in the national interest, if they had an existing threat, or intelligence indicated a higher risk, that’s generally the criteria for official security to be provided.
Harry’s second lawsuit has a long way to go. Reporters were told by the Judicial Office, “It is at an early stage, no hearings have been listed yet and no decisions have been made.”
But it doesn’t take a genius to determine that the only real winners in these cases, will probably be Harry’s lawyers.