(Files) Britain's Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex waves as he arrives to attend a ceremony marking the 10th anniversary of the Invictus Games, in central London, on May 8, 2024. (Photo by Justin Tallis / AFP)
London: Prince Harry wants "reconciliation” with the royal family, he said Friday, but claimed King Charles III refuses to speak to him amid a dispute over his personal protection while in the United Kingdom.
"I would love reconciliation with my family,” Harry told the BBC from California, where he now lives. "There’s no point in continuing to fight anymore. Life is precious. I don’t know how much longer my father has.” Charles was diagnosed with an undisclosed form of cancer last year and is undergoing treatment.
Harry, the Duke of Sussex, spoke after losing an appeal to reinstate his publicly funded police protection. He is the younger of the king’s two sons.
Charles "won’t speak to me because of this security stuff,” he told the public broadcaster, "but it would be nice to reconcile.”
The prince blamed the royal household for influencing the decision over his security status. Buckingham Palace responded with a statement: "All of these issues have been examined repeatedly and meticulously by the courts, with the same conclusion reached on each occasion.”
Harry wants the level of security protection he had when he lived in Britain as a working royal. Senior royals are protected by specially trained police officers who have access to British intelligence information. But when Harry stepped back from his royal duties in 2020 and moved to the United States, his status was downgraded.
The decision to strip his automatic security was made by the Royal and VIP Executive Committee, which assesses and authorizes protection for members of the royal family and public figures. It includes representatives from the government, the Metropolitan Police and the royal household.
A British court ruled in February that Harry had no right to full royal protection. He appealed. On Friday, the Court of Appeal ruled that a committee hadn’t treated Harry unfairly when reviewing his case.
Judge Geoffrey Vos said Harry’s legal team had made "powerful and moving” arguments about his safety concerns, but they did not "translate into a legal argument.”
Publicly funded security protection remains available to Harry and his family when he visits Britain, but the government has said details will be decided on a case-by-case basis. Harry and his wife, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, are the parents of Prince Archie, 5, and Princess Lilibet, 3.
There have been "so many disagreements, differences between me and some of my family,” he said. "This current situation that has been now ongoing for five years, with regard to human life and safety, is the sticking point. It is the only thing that’s left.
"Of course, some members of my family will never forgive me for writing a book,” he said. Harry detailed relations among the royal family in his 2023 memoir, "Spare.”
Harry said he was "devastated” by the court’s ruling. "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.”
Given current security arrangements, the prince said, "I can’t see a world in which I would bring my wife and children back to the U.K. at this point.”
Harry has made several solo journeys back to Britain since moving to the U.S., including for Charles’s coronation in May 2023. He made a transatlantic dash in February 2024 after the palace made public Charles’s cancer diagnosis. Father and son reportedly met for less than an hour.
