Meghan Markle news: Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are expected to return to Britain this month, but the trip is being complicated by a dispute over security protection and where their family will stay. The visit would be the first return to the UK in four years for Princess Lilibet and Prince Archie.
Katie Nicholl said there is a "real sense of frustration" inside the palace as the trip remains in limbo. She also said Harry does not have automatic right to taxpayer-funded police protection when he is in the UK.
Katie Nicholl on Harry's security
Nicholl said Harry is fighting for accommodations on a royal estate to help protect his family. She said, "The king was very happy to put Harry and Meghan and the children up in a royal residence where, by the way, they would have had full taxpayer police protection round the clock while they were a royal residence... Where they don't get that taxpayer protection is if they're traveling around the country and Harry doing his Invictus Games."
She also said, "Harry is a very wealthy man in his own right. He chose to step down from the royal family. He's not a working member of the royal family."
March security review
The couple were reportedly told that an official review over their security request was scheduled for March. They later learned that the assessment was never conducted by the Executive Committee for the Protection of Royalty and Public Figures, the body tied to the protection dispute.
In December, Harry wrote privately to Shabana Mahmood requesting a full security risk assessment to reassess threat levels for the first time since 2020. That request placed the protection issue back at the center of the trip planning.
Britain trip this month
The family last joined the royal family at the queen's funeral in September 2022, and this month's trip would bring Princess Lilibet and Prince Archie back to the UK for the first time in four years. Nicholl said the palace was "really going above and beyond" to accommodate the Sussexes, but the security and lodging arrangements have not been aligned.
Whether Prince Harry and Meghan Markle travel to Britain this month now turns on whether the family can proceed with the royal residence option and the protection setup that goes with it.
