The battle continues. Prince Harry wants to take Meghan Markle and their kids for a visit with Queen Elizabeth II, but he’s determined to win his fight for property security first.
“Harry has his heart set on returning to the U.K. to see the queen with Meghan, Archie and Lilibet, but that will only happen if the government takes the appropriate measures to protect his family,” an insider exclusively tells Us Weekly of the Duke of Sussex, 37. “He refuses to put them at risk. Their safety comes before anything else.”
Earlier this month, the Invictus Games founder applied for a judicial review regarding a previous Home Office decision that ruled he could not personally fund police protection for himself and his wife, 40, and their children Archie, 2, and Lilibet, 7 months, while in the U.K.
“Prince Harry inherited a security risk at birth, for life. He remains sixth in line to the throne, served two tours of combat duty in Afghanistan, and in recent years his family has been subjected to well-documented neo-Nazi and extremist threats,” Harry’s legal spokesperson said in a January 15 statement. “While his role within the Institution has changed, his profile as a member of the royal family has not. Nor has the threat to him and his family.”
The queen’s grandson previously offered to pay for police protection after stepping down from his royal duties in January 2020, but that offer was dismissed. Since the family’s move to California, the former helicopter pilot has personally funded a private security team, but he argued that a similar arrangement would not work in his home country.
“That security cannot replicate the necessary police protection needed whilst in the UK,” the statement added. “In absence of such protection, Prince Harry and his family are unable to return home.”
In addition to seeing his grandmother, the BetterUp CIO wants his kids to meet Prince George, 8, Princess Charlotte, 6, and Prince Louis, 3.
“Harry and Meghan are doing everything they can to make the world a better place and feel it would be wrong to rob their children of the opportunity of getting to know their cousins,” the insider adds. “It’s obviously difficult because of the distance factor, so Harry sweetly organized a special Zoom call with Prince William so that the cousins could get to see each other.”
With reporting by Travis Cronin
