Prince Harry is expected to bring his own security team with his family visits London next month, as sources said the renegade royal and wife Meghan Markle are preparing for a “huge spectacle.”
Harry — who pays about $3 million a year for private security in the US — has yet to be afforded VIP security after battling the British Home Office for 24/7 armed police escorts, and is in a “holding pattern,” we’re told.
But he has been offered a royal residence with private security for his stay with Markle and their kids Prince Archie, 7, and Princess Lilibet, 5.
One source in the know said the family won’t fly by private jet, but they will have their own bodyguards, adding, “Harry always travels with one of two of his own security team.”
The family’s first time back to the UK in four years is expected to draw a huge amount of attention.
The Sussexes’ trip has been planned to mark the one-year countdown until the Invictus Games takes place in Birmingham next summer, from July 7-10, and Harry wants to use the time to reunite with his father, King Charles, who has barely seen Archie and Lilibet.
“They know it will make the biggest spectacle,” said the source of Harry and Markle. “They will want photos of them being ‘royal.’”
Indeed, the big question is whether the Sussexes, in tandem with Buckingham Palace, will release a photo of Charles with his grandchildren.
Although the children have been heavily featured on Markle’s Instagram account — and in ads for her lifestyle range, As Ever — they have rarely had their full faces pictured.
Harry’s UK security is a matter for RAVEC, the Royal and VIP Executive Committee, which is responsible for deciding the level of security granted to senior royals and other VIPs in the UK.
But the family’s own security are not allowed to carry weapons in the UK; only elite officers are allowed to be armed.
Harry and his team also don’t get MI6 or police intelligence, as sources said that royal and diplomatic protection cops are tapped into the intelligence infrastructure of the state in a way that private security are not.
Back in January, when Harry was London’s High Court for his privacy case against the publisher of the Daily Mail, a known stalker, who may be suffering from mental health issues, sat just feet away from him on two separate occasions, according to The Daily Telegraph.
The prince’s private security team noticed the stalker in court, but did not have have the right to intervene.
“There is nothing they could do; they are not the police. It’s a public building, and she has a right to be there,” an insider said.
Sir Clive Alderton, King Charles’ Principal Private Secretary — and the most senior aide at Buckingham Palace — is one of eight on the panel who holds Harry’s security in his hands.
Harry has long argued that his father could step in and override any decision made by RAVEC, telling the BBC last year, “There is a lot of control and ability in my father’s hands.
“Ultimately, this whole thing could be resolved through him. Not necessarily by intervening, but by stepping aside, allowing the experts to do what is necessary,” he 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 I think that it’s really quite sad that I won’t be able to show, you know, my children my homeland.”
Last year, he was granted a risk-management board to review his security status. Now RAVEC is set to advise an independent chair to weigh in on whether Harry should be entitled to armed guards.
In a statement, the Home Office told Page Six, “The UK Government’s protective security system is rigorous and proportionate. It is our long-standing policy not to provide detailed information on those arrangements, as doing so could compromise their integrity and affect individuals’ security.”
And while Markle, 44, took the opportunity to publicize her As Ever brand while on an April trip to Australia, including partnering with the AI fashion platform OneOff, we’re told she has no plans to hold any work meetings while in the UK.
A Sussex rep declined to discuss security issues.
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