I don’t really have a sense of who leaked the “news” of Prince Harry’s supposedly successful Home Office risk assessment. If the story genuinely came from Team Sussex, it was a smart move from them, to put it out there that the Home Office risk assessment will find that Harry, Meghan and their children should receive police protection whenever they visit the UK. When the risk assessment is completed, it will be sent to Ravec, which ultimately has the authority to follow the risk assessment or disregard it to continue “punishing” Harry for the crime of “leaving.” This amounts to a highly-publicized pressure campaign aimed at Ravec, and Harry (or whoever leaked the story) is ensuring that Ravec cannot make their decision in total secrecy. Speaking of, Tom Sykes has recovered from the flu and his latest piece is “Prince Harry’s Security Win Will Sicken William.” This piece is yet another admission that William and all of the royal courts are in control of who gets police security and who doesn’t, and that William is going to have a nervous breakdown if Harry is allowed to come and go safely to and from the UK. From The Royalist Substack:

Sources are now briefing journalists that they believe [Harry’s] police protection will be restored. If this turns out to be true, it changes absolutely everything. This is the fight Harry has spent millions of dollars pursuing, the case he himself described as the most important of all.

Why does it matter so much? Because it blows apart what many insiders assumed was the establishment’s long-term plan for dealing with Harry: exile. The model here was Edward VIII, later Duke of Windsor, who was neutralized and rendered irrelevant through banishment.

Without security, Harry’s trips back to the U.K. are complicated and expensive. But if Harry gets his security back, exile is effectively over. He can come and go from the U.K. at will, at no personal cost. He may also regain international protected-person status, entitling him to U.K. government security even overseas. It would be hugely expensive, but cost is not really the issue bothering his brother. The real issue is the impression of legitimacy. Harry being whisked through London with a police escort sends a particular message about his position. Security coverage for him and his family would reopen many doors that have been firmly shut for years.

I have reported before that Harry intends to educate his children in England. I was once told—wrongly, Harry himself later said—that Eton was being considered, but my sources remain convinced that he wants them back in the U.K. Partly this is about establishing them as members of the British royal family, but another factor is Harry’s anxiety about gun crime in the United States.

A victory on security will enable a return, not as a contrite prodigal, but as the head of a parallel court: trading on royal status while remaining entirely free of royal discipline. For William and Catherine, Princess of Wales, preparing for an eventual change of reign, this is an appalling prospect.

For Harry, it is a huge opportunity. Things have not gone the way the Sussexes hoped in America. Commercial ventures have faltered, the charity has been shuttered and restructured. Harry wouldn’t be the first Brit to return home from the U.S. with his tail between his legs, but resolved to apply the lessons of America at home. Winning security back will give him the chance to do that without massive up-front costs, and money is going to be an important theme for the Sussexes this year.

Sources close to Harry remain nervous. They fear a last-minute stitch-up by RAVEC, even if the Risk Management Board rules in his favor. They are not quite ready to declare victory. But my view is that it is hard to see how this doesn’t end with Harry getting what he wants.

[From The Royalist Substack]

“…The charity has been shuttered and restructured…” Which is it? Either it was shuttered OR restructured, it can’t be both? The answer is: restructured and rebanded with a new name. While it’s clear that the Sussexes are making some changes professionally and philanthropically, those changes do not equal “Harry moving back to the UK with his tail between his legs.” That’s the second time I’ve seen that phrase about “his tail between his legs” too – almost like that was in the palace’s email blast. Anyway, I wouldn’t be surprised if William is having a breakdown over the idea of Harry coming and going as he pleases, or Harry being treated as a VIP with police protection. But alongside that incipient breakdown is the big reveal that William and Charles withdrew Harry’s security as part of a larger plan of exile, humiliation, scapegoating and, eventually, their hope for Harry’s return to the UK, broken and humiliated. Six years later and they’re still holding on to that fever dream, even as it’s already blown up in their faces.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.