It isn’t long now until the joyous day that Harry and Meghan once more make Britain their home, but several aspects of their return are still clouded in mystery. We have no idea, for instance, where they are going to be living – although the Cotswolds have been mooted. Once they arrive there, there is also the rather vexed question as to whether their no doubt hugely expensive security is going to be privately funded or the taxpayer’s burden.
Two former home secretaries have gone public to argue that there should be at least some level of taxpayer-funded protection for the Sussexes. This may not be a wildly popular perspective but can at least be justified on humanitarian grounds. Lord Blunkett told the Sunday Times that he believed that there was a ‘happy medium’ in terms of the security that they might be offered, which would consist of ‘security where you have one or two officers who travel’ with the couple, and which could then be reassessed in a couple of years’ time, depending on need. Blunkett justified this on the grounds that:
It all adds up to something of a headache for Shabana Mahmood
I think on a temporary basis it is, because he is still a very close member of the royal family, irrespective of what duties he’s undertaking on their behalf, and he’s still in the top ten in line for the throne…I think that we just need to take a deep breath, take a step back and say, well, can’t we manage something that is seen by everyone to be rational, understanding but not necessarily permanent?
This was echoed by another former home secretary who, perhaps understandably, chose to remain anonymous. This person suggested that:
There are many questions to ask about potential security provision and protection. Yes, the cost is very high, but it could be limited and restricted and not full time but that’s down to His Majesty and the wider royal family. I think it’s hard to imagine how he and his family would not receive some protection, but as ever let’s not forget he did go to court over it and sued the government on this matter just when we were making very important changes to protective security and costs. I suspect this will all be part of a ‘phased approach’.
Whether or not these politicians are correct, two things are undoubtedly true. The first is that Harry remains a member of the royal family, whether a working one or not, and therefore a high-profile security risk. (His revelation in his memoir Spare that he killed 25 Taliban fighters is unlikely to have endeared him to many would-be jihadists.)
And the second is that the Sussexes made a spontaneous decision, with ‘Megxit’, to quit the royal family and to head off for a new life as independent money-generating private citizens. It seems a bit rich, no pun intended, for a pair of multimillionaires to return to Britain over a few years in what are still slightly mysterious circumstances and demand that the same privileges that they would have enjoyed had they never rocked the boat so spectacularly should now resume.
It all adds up to something of a headache for the current home secretary, Shabana Mahmood. She is caught between the rock of public opinion not being on Harry and Meghan’s side and the hard place of the possibility, even the likelihood, of a terrorist or subversive organisation seeking to target them.
I suspect, all things being equal, that Lord Blunkett’s suggestion is going to become the adopted approach. A limited amount of taxpayer-funded security will most likely then be therefore subsidised by the Sussexes themselves if they want a greater number of large, unsmiling men accompanying them out on the school run or grocery shopping. But as with so much to do with the dynamic duo, there are going to be some unpopular and expensive decisions being made very shortly. One can only expect that few, if anyone, will be truly happy with the result.
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