Prince Harry pulls out of Prince Philip’s memorial service: Duke of Sussex will not fly back to Britain at end of month but ‘hopes to visit the Queen as soon as possible’
- Prince Harry will not return to the UK for Duke of Edinburgh’s memorial service
- Congregation at Westminster Abbey will include family, friends and dignitaries
- There will also be representatives of organisations with which Philip was linked
- Spokesperson for the Duke said he hopes to visit the Queen ‘as soon as possible’
- Harry has been locked in a High Court battle over his UK security arrangements
Prince Harry will not be returning to the UK later this month to attend the high-profile memorial marking the passing of the Duke of Edinburgh, it was revealed today.
A spokesperson for the Duke of Sussex today confirmed he would not be physically attending his grandfather’s Service of Thanksgiving, which is due to be held at Westminster Abbey on March 29.
The spokesperson added the Duke hopes ‘to visit the Queen as soon as possible’.
The congregation will include family, friends, dignitaries and representatives of many charities and organisations with which the Duke of Edinburgh was associated.
But shunning the event, particularly one which will honour his beloved grandfather, is likely to add further tension to his already strained relationship with his family.
Speculation had mounted that Harry would not be in attendance after the Prince started a High Court battle over his taxpayer-funded security arrangements in the UK.
The Duke launched legal proceedings after he claimed he did not ‘feel safe’ in Britain without the protection of Scotland Yard officers, who he believes offer superior protection to privately hired bodyguards.
A spokesperson for the Duke of Sussex today confirmed he would not be physically attending Prince Philip’s Service of Thanksgiving , which is due to be held at Westminster Abbey on March 29
Shunning the event, particularly one which will honour his beloved grandfather, is likely to add further tension to Prince Harry’s already strained relationship with his family
Last year, Harry returned without his wife Meghan and children Lilibet, aged eight months, and Archie, two, to attend his grandfather’s funeral, which was restricted to close family and friends at Windsor due to Covid restrictions.
But a source close to the Royal Family had said: ‘They don’t think it’s likely he’ll come back because it would undermine his position that it’s too much of a threat.’
It is believed to be even more unlikely that Meghan and their children would return.
When the Queen recently announced that it was her ‘sincere wish’ that Camilla would become Queen when her husband Charles is King, Harry made no publicly supportive comment to his step-mother in response to the news.
And the Royal family is braced for further Harry bombshells when he publishes his memoirs, which are said to have been pushed back to the end of this year.
Speculation had mounted that Harry would not be in attendance after the Prince started a High Court battle over his taxpayer-funded security arrangements in the UK. Pictured: Her Majesty and Prince Philip together in Windsor
The Queen, 95, who contracted Covid just over two weeks ago, has also just pulled out of attending the Commonwealth Day service at the abbey on Monday.
Harry’s grandmother still hasn’t met the Duke and Duchess of Sussexes’ daughter, who was born last June in California and named Lilibet after the Queen’s childhood nickname.
Royal author Brian Hoey said he believes that a meeting between the Queen and the newest member of the Sussex family would heal the reported rift between Harry and the other senior royals.
He explained: ‘I have heard from people I know within the Royal Household, she really would desperately like to see the baby in this way.
‘I think she would love to, I wonder whether it is going to happen, I would love to think it could,’ he added.
Last year, Harry returned without his wife Meghan and children Lilibet, aged eight months, and Archie, two, to attend his grandfather’s funeral, which was restricted to close family and friends at Windsor due to Covid restrictions
The Duke of Sussex wants to bring his children to visit from across the Atlantic, but ‘does not feel safe’ when visiting under the current security arrangements, the court was previously told
The developments come on the same day that Prince Harry and his wife Meghan Markle signed an open letter accusing the UK and ‘rich’ neighbours of pursuing ‘self-defeating nationalism’ to deny African and Asian countries the right to make their own Covid-19 vaccines.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are campaigning for Britain to work with pharmaceutical companies to waive intellectual property rights on the life-saving jabs in the latest flashpoint between Harry and his home country.
In an open letter published this afternoon, Meghan, Harry and other signatories warned ‘the pandemic is not over’, and blamed ‘self-defeating nationalism, pharmaceutical monopolies and inequality’ for the entire world not being vaccinated by now.
The UK has vowed to donate 100million coronavirus vaccine doses within the next year to low-income countries as part of at least 1billion doses due from the G7.
There have been a number of African countries, including Nigeria, where more than one million doses were destroyed last year because they expired after low uptake saw just two per cent of the population fully vaccinated in 2021.
In December experts said up to one third of Africa’s Covid vaccine deliveries remain in storage as rollouts are hindered by jab hesitancy and infrastructure problems.
The Sussexes have repeatedly called for global vaccine equity, comparing it to the HIV crisis in 1980s and 1990s, and today their Archewell Foundation joined The People’s Vaccine coalition, a group of 90 famous names and organisations demanding vaccines are ‘freely available to everyone, everywhere’.
The couple have today said that ‘world leaders’ and ‘rich nations’ now ‘have the responsibility to change the situation’ in a letter also signed by Charlize Theron and Ban Ki-Moon.
Their letter says: ‘The European Union, the United Kingdom and Switzerland continue to block the lifting of intellectual property rules which would enable the distribution and scale-up of Covid-19 vaccines, test and treatment facilities in the global south.
‘The transfer of largely publicly funded vaccine technology and know-how from pharmaceutical corporations would fast track production to a matter of months. Yet still today, a handful of these corporations retain the power to dictate vaccine supply, distribution and price – and the power to decide who lives and who dies’.
Harry (pictured with Meghan in the UK in 2019) is arguing that his private protection team in the US does not have adequate jurisdiction abroad or access to UK intelligence information which is needed to keep his family safe
It comes as the Duke pursues a legal challenge against the Home Office after being told he would no longer be given the ‘same degree’ of personal protective security when visiting from the US, despite offering to pay for it himself.
The High Court heard how Harry received ‘insufficient information’ over a decision to change his tax-payer funded police protection when he is in the UK.
The Duke hopes to bring his children to visit from across the Atlantic, but ‘does not feel safe’ when visiting under the current security arrangements, the court was previously told.
He is challenging the February 2020 decision of the Executive Committee for the Protection of Royalty and Public Figures (Ravec), which has delegated powers from the Home Secretary.
Harry is arguing that his private protection team in the US does not have adequate jurisdiction abroad or access to UK intelligence information which is needed to keep his family safe.
What is Harry’s concern with UK security and why is he taking legal action?
Are Harry and his family covered by security arrangements currently?
He and his wife, the Duchess of Sussex, personally fund a private protection team in the US for their family.
The Sussexes have signed multimillion-pound deals with Netflix and Spotify, with Harry telling Oprah Winfrey he secured these to pay for his security.
But he and Meghan lost their taxpayer-funded police protection in the UK in the aftermath of quitting as senior working royals.
Why did they lose their taxpayer-funded security?
Their security provision was one of the key issues when the couple announced they wanted to step down in 2020.
Speaking to Winfrey during the couple’s sit-down interview in 2021, Harry said he was told that ‘due to our change of status – we would no longer be ‘official’ members of the royal family’.
He said he had been shocked by this and ‘pushed back’ on the issue, arguing that there had been no change of threat or risk to the couple.
Meghan, during the same interview, told how she had written to her husband’s family urging them not to ‘pull his security’, but had been told ‘it’s just not possible’.
At the time of announcing their stepping back from royal life in 2020, their website suggested the Home Office, through the Metropolitan Police, should continue to provide protection for the couple and Archie, their only child at the time.
Have they offered to pay for police protection in the UK themselves?
Yes. Harry wants to fund the security himself, rather than ask taxpayers to foot the bill, his legal representative said.
He first offered to personally pay for police protection in the UK for himself and his family during the so-called Sandringham summit in January 2020, but the legal representative said that offer ‘was dismissed’.
The representative added that Harry ‘remains willing to cover the cost of security, as not to impose on the British taxpayer’.
Can they use the same security team they have while in the US?
Harry’s legal representative said that while the couple personally fund a private security team for their family, ‘that security cannot replicate the necessary police protection needed whilst in the UK’.
His argument is that the US team does not have adequate jurisdiction abroad or access to UK intelligence information which is needed to keep the Sussex family safe.
So what is Harry doing about the issue of his UK security now?
In September 2021, he filed a claim for a judicial review against the Home Office decision.
His legal team said this course of action was taken ‘after another attempt at negotiations was also rejected’.
They said the judicial review bid is an attempt to ‘challenge the decision-making behind the security procedures, in the hopes that this could be re-evaluated for the obvious and necessary protection required’.
What threats do the couple see themselves as facing in the UK?
In a statement, the legal representative said: ‘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. 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.’
Has the Home Office said anything about the bid for judicial review?
A Government spokesperson said: ‘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. To do so could compromise their integrity and affect individuals’ security.
‘It would also not be appropriate to comment on the detail of any legal proceedings.’
Will the couple return to the UK if the issue is not resolved in the way they would like?
A spokesperson for the duke has said that, in the absence of what they consider to be the necessary protection, ‘Prince Harry and his family are unable to return to his home’.
They insisted the UK ‘will always be Prince Harry’s home’, adding that it is ‘a country he wants his wife and children to be safe in’.
But they added: ‘With the lack of police protection, comes too great a personal risk.’
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