Prince Harrys royal protection was suddenly cut off in February 2020
This week, Prince Harry’s lawyers are in court, arguing about his security when he’s in the UK. When QEII was alive, she made sure that he and Meghan had royal protection when they visited, but this situation is now in dire straits with Harry’s father on the throne. Something that never made sense to me about the timeline in 2020 is when did the Sussexes’ royal protection really get pulled and when were they officially “cut off” from the institution? Omid Scobie writes, in Endgame, that the final cutoff happened in July 2020, when the Lord Chamberlain made good on his threat to cut off Harry when Harry refused to drop his legal action against the Sun, which led straight to Christian Jones. But we also know that Tyler Perry basically had to provide his private security to the Sussexes by the end of March 2020. Now, at least the timeline makes slightly more sense – Ravec cut off Harry’s security rather suddenly in February 2020.
RAVEC, a committee that also included police and senior palace aides who Harry had fallen out with, made the decision in February 2020 after he announced his decision to quit a month earlier and before his final royal engagements that March.
Shaheed Fatima, Harry’s attorney, told the court RAVEC’s own policies suggested an assessment by the Risk Management Board (RMB) should have been taken before he was stripped of his protection.
“In this case RAVEC chose not to follow its own written policy,” she told the High Court in London. “RAVEC chose not to do an RMB risk analysis. RAVEC therefore chose to apply a far inferior procedure to [Harry] that lacked the critical safeguards that have been built into the written policy.”
The prince’s team believe it is the first time the Home Office has done this and Fatima added: “No good reason has been provided for singling [Harry] out in this way. The critical point is that when that decision was taken he was still a full-time working member of the royal family,” she continued. “He was plainly still in the RAVEC cohort and the written policies should have been applied to him.”
She said “the court does not need to make a decision about” whether Harry should get “protective security,” but rather whether the decision was unlawful. It is possible that even if Harry wins, the government will simply take the same decision again using a different process.
[From Newsweek]
“It is possible that even if Harry wins, the government will simply take the same decision again using a different process.” Yep. I mean, I support Harry and I find this case really fascinating, because Harry is exposing some really disgusting sh-t at the heart of the royal protection bureaucracy, but nothing is going to change. It’s through this case that I learned that royal protection does not follow the threat, it follows favoritism and rank. Harry and Meghan were in serious danger and under siege from violent racists and lunatics – but because Harry was disliked by Edward Young and because the Windsors wanted to put the Sussexes “in their place,” they limited and ultimately removed the Sussexes’ protection. It’s short-sighted and extremely dangerous. And whatever happens with Harry’s case, the end result will be the same – Ravec has made it abundantly clear that the Sussexes need to be in mortal danger and that the Sussexes cannot pay for their police protection if they ever visit the UK.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid.
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