Prince Harry will be back in the UK next week (Image: Getty)
Royal fans were quick to comment on Prince Harry’s bombshell statement about his security arrangements for his trip to the UK next month. The Duke of Sussex is returning to his home country for five days, but he is not currently set to receive round-the-clock taxpayer-funded police protection.
Harry is said to be trying to find a way to safely bring his wife and children to the UK, despite concerns over how they will be protected and confusion over where they will stay. The duke was waiting for a review by the Risk Management Board (RMB), part of the process by which the Executive Committee for the Protection of Royalty and Public Figures (Ravec) rules on his security requirements, but learned on Friday that it had yet to take place. A spokesman for the duke said: “The duke continues to explore every available option to enable the visit to proceed safely and to give his children the opportunity to enjoy the UK.”
They added: “Prince Harry’s programme in the United Kingdom includes both public and private engagements across the country.
“Safe accommodation is only one element of an effective protective security plan because risk follows the person, not the place.
“The issue has never been accommodation. The issue is whether appropriate and proportionate protective security is being provided throughout the entirety of the visit.
“The independent Risk Management Board that Ravec itself decided was necessary last November has still not taken place.
“It is therefore difficult to understand how the proportionality of the current arrangements can credibly be maintained without that independent assessment.”
However, some fans were critical of Harry’s request and took to social media to express their views.
Prince Harry has been in a legal battle with the Home Office regarding his security in the UK (Image: Getty)
One user said on X: “Yet the [Sussexes] travel to Nigeria, Columbia & Jaimaica. For goodness sake. Harry was in Ukraine twice & that’s an active war zone. We aren’t d**b, Harry.”
Another one added: “I’m totally missing his logic that his family needs such high security he uses same security in US (LA no less which is a mess) and is fine. If someone want to get to his family it would be anywhere. Why is UK different??”
A third one opined: “If the FUTURE QUEEN of the United Kingdom the Princess of Wales can wander around doing the Three Peaks Challenge without ANY security or ANY security issues whatsoever, it shows Prince Harry SCREECHING about ‘appropriate and proportionate’ security is really about his fragile ego.”
A fourth one asked: “How about slipping into the UK quietly as they did in Portugal?”
Another one agreed: “How about stop telling everyone what you are doing, stay at one of the Royal residencies he has been offered and I dare say they will send him a car. He already has protection provided as you well know.”
A sixth one commented: “They could’ve snuck the kids in and then left. Then they could’ve made the announcement. Instead, they announced to the world that they’re bringing the kids to milk it for headlines and then they post their minute-by-minute itinerary.”
Harry has faced a protracted legal battle with the Home Office over the security arrangements for him and his family when in the UK after his level of protection changed when he stepped down as a working royal in 2020.
When the duke lost a Court of Appeal challenge against the Home Office last year, he gave a BBC interview in which he expressed hopes of a reconciliation with his family, revealing Charles would not speak to him because of his security court case.
Harry added: “I can’t see a world in which I would be bringing my wife and children back to the UK at this point and the things that they’re going to miss is, well, everything you know.”
Harry had planned to be joined by his wife and Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet on his five-day trip to mark the one-year countdown to the Invictus Games in Birmingham.
No decision on Harry’s security has been made yet.