The Duke of Sussex has told the BBC he “would love a reconciliation” with the Royal Family, in an emotional interview in which he said he was “devastated” at losing a legal challenge over his security in the UK.
Prince Harry said the King “won’t speak to me because of this security stuff”, but that he did not want to fight anymore and did “not know how much longer my father has”.
The prince spoke to BBC News in California after losing an appeal over the levels of security he and his family are entitled to while in the UK.
“I can’t see a world in which I would bring my wife and children back to the UK at this point,” he said after the defeat.
“There have been so many disagreements between myself and some of my family,” he said, but had now “forgiven” them.
“I would love reconciliation with my family. There’s no point continuing to fight any more, life is precious,” said Prince Harry.
The prince had wanted to overturn changes to his security that were introduced in 2020 as he stepped down as a working royal and moved to the United States.
Saying that he felt “let down”, he described his court defeat as a “good old fashioned establishment stitch up” and blamed the Royal Household for influencing the decision to reduce his security.
Asked whether he had asked the King to intervene in the dispute over security, Prince Harry said: “I never asked him to intervene – I asked him to step out of the way and let the experts do their jobs.”
The prince said his treatment during the process of deciding his security had “uncovered my worst fears”.
He said of the decision: “I’m devastated – not so much as devastated with the loss that I am about the people behind the decision, feeling as though this is okay. Is it a win for them?”
He continued: “I’m sure there are some people out there, probably most likely the people that wish me harm, [who] consider this a huge win.”
Prince Harry said the decision to remove his automatic security entitlement impacts him “every single day”, and has left him in a position where he can only safely return to the UK if invited by the Royal Family – as he would get sufficient security in those circumstances.
The prince said changes to his security status in 2020 had impacted not just him, but his wife and, later, his children too.
He went on to say: “Everybody knew that they were putting us at risk in 2020 and they hoped that me knowing that risk would force us to come back.
“But then when you realise that didn’t work, do you not want to keep us safe?
“Whether you’re the government, the Royal Household, whether you’re my dad, my family – despite all of our differences, do you not want to just ensure our safety?”
Asked whether he missed the UK, he added: “I love my country, I always have done, despite what some people in that country have done… and I think that it’s really quite sad that I won’t be able to show my children my homeland.”
Prince Harry spoke to the BBC shortly after losing his latest legal challenge against the UK government over the level of security he and his family are entitled to when visiting.
The Court of Appeal dismissed the prince’s case, which hinged on how an official committee made the decision to remove his eligibility for automatic, full-scale protection in line with what other senior royals receive.
On Friday, the court ruled that Prince Harry had made “powerful” arguments about the level of threat he and his family face, but said his “sense of grievance” did not “translate into a legal argument”.
His legal complaint centred around a committee called the Protection of Royalty and Public Figures (Ravec), which authorises security for senior royals on behalf of the Home Office, and was chaired at the time by Sir Richard Mottram.
Under the committee’s regulations, Prince Harry argued, his case should have been put before Ravec’s Risk Management Board (RMB), which would have assessed the threats to his and family’s security – but that did not happen.
On Friday, senior judges said the committee had diverged from policy when making its 2020 decision over the prince’s security, but concluded it had been “sensible” to do so because of the complexity of his circumstances.
Prince Harry called on UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and Home Secretary Yvette Cooper to intervene in his security case, and to overhaul how the Ravec committee operates.
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