Inside Harry and Meghan’s explosive return to UK – and what happens next

Prince Harry’s return to Britain opens the door to his reintegration into the Royal Family – but new hurdles lie ahead. In the short term, Harry and Meghan’s move to the UK offers King Charles, who was blindsided when told on Sunday that they were moving back, a stronger chance to rebuild his relationship with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and his grandchildren, Prince Archie, 7, and Princess Lilibet, 5, without allowing them to undertake official royal duties. The Sussexes could be welcomed at some Royal Family occasions in future but are likely to be banned from big official or state events. Royal sources have made it clear that Harry and Meghan will remain private individuals and not taxpayer-funded representatives of the monarchy. Buckingham Palace declined to discuss what that would mean for their attendance at events but, in essence, they could be invited to family gatherings at Sandringham at Christmas, Windsor Castle at Easter, Balmoral in the summer, and to semi-official events such as Royal Ascot week. But quite how that could be achieved with the Prince and Princess of Wales there is unclear and it might require a rapprochement before they could be at the same event on the same day. Under current practice, there will be no invitation for Harry, a veteran of the Afghanistan conflict, or Meghan to state events such as Trooping the Colour or the Cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday. Similarly, they would not be invited to the annual Commonwealth Day service at Westminster Abbey or invited to step in for the King to host an investiture or any other official engagement because they are not working royals. It is also unlikely they will be welcomed by the Prince and Princess of Wales, who have not spoken to Harry and Meghan for several years and are still in no mood to reconcile, according to friends. Harry, 41, and Meghan, 45, have declined to comment publicly so far on their decision to relocate to Britain but friends said that there were a number of factors behind the move. The fifth-in-line to the throne has missed his friends and family and the UK, they said, and he wants the children to grow up British and go to school in the UK. It is no secret that the couple are not fans of Donald Trump and the political instability in the US under his presidency. However, they appear to have had no fears that Harry’s visa might be cancelled amid a campaign by a right-wing think-tank, the Heritage Foundation, to uncover and challenge the basis on which he is allowed to live in California. ‘Harry’s visa is not a factor – nor is tax’ There has also been speculation that they might be running short of money – a claim denied by people close to them – and that there might be some tax advantage for them to return to Britain at this stage. But a source close to them said: “The decision to move back is not any one thing,” adding that there were “always a number of factors in play”. The same source added: “But Harry’s visa is not a factor, nor is tax.” The couple’s office, like the British government, refused to say whether there had been a change in their security status. Andy Burnham said funding for the arrangement was a “private matter”. For the past few years, Harry has insisted that Britain was too dangerous to bring his family back to because they no longer had the automatic right to armed police protection and access to national intelligence. The King, 77, will welcome having Harry and his grandchildren closer, according to royal sources (Photo: Max Mumby/Getty) But last month, even though they were denied police protection and had to rely on their own US-based private security team, Meghan and the children joined Harry on a visit to see relatives, including the King and Queen Camilla at Highgrove and Earl Spencer and his family at Althorp, the Spencer ancestral home where Princess Diana is buried. It seems likely that they also went to check out their new home and where the children will go to school, both of which remain under wraps for the moment. “They did a really good job of finding a school without anything leaking out,” one insider said. The worldwide interest in the Sussexes and the controversy surrounding them means that their surprise comeback at the end of this month also creates a danger that their often outspoken views, commercial activities and an even higher profile for them in the UK will clash with the Royal Household’s objectives and messaging. The King, now 77, will welcome having Harry and his grandchildren closer, according to royal sources, but on the face of it there is no prospect of the Sussexes returning to official duties and being half in, half out. Charles and William have long been firm on this point, worrying that family members running businesses and doing deals while undertaking official duties for the state opens themselves up to the sort of accusations of abuse of position facing the King’s brother, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. But it would not be the first major U-turn by Charles. His office previously said he had no intention of marrying Camilla after Princess Diana’s death, no intention of making Camilla his Queen when they did announce plans to wed, and every intention of living in Buckingham Palace when he became King. He has reneged on all those pledges. Pressure builds on William to mend fences with brother Harry and Meghan have suggested that they hope one day their two children will play a full part in the Royal Family but the window for them and their children is closing rapidly. Without a rapprochement with William, there is little prospect of that, according to well-placed sources, and in a further slimmed-down monarchy in the next reign, it is likely that the future working Royal Family will be only William, Kate and their children eventually. Peter Hunt, a former BBC royal correspondent, suggested that their decision to return will have left William, 44, “apoplectic” and would add to pressure on him to try to mend fences with his brother. But it is hard to see them reconciling and that could affect the monarchy in the next reign. “In the long term, the return of the Sussexes to the UK opens up the prospect of two rival courts, William’s and Harry’s,” Hunt said. Harry still has a circle of loyal friends in the UK to turn to but he will need to work hard to mend fences with others close to the family who may have felt betrayed by his actions since leaving Britain six years ago. He and Meghan, still furious that they were served with a notice of eviction from their Frogmore Cottage home by the King in November 2022, only two months after he acceded to the throne and before the publication of Harry’s memoir Spare, will keep their £11m home in Montecito, California, and a holiday hideaway in Portugal. But they are now understood to be relocating to a private residence, thought to be outside London and not on a royal estate. Their children are enrolled in school starting next month. Most private schools will be back by the second week of September. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex hold their baby son Archie in 2019 (Photo: Henk Kruger/Getty) “The children are too young for boarding these days – seven is the absolute earliest but most parents will, like the Waleses did with Prince George, wait until they are in their final year at prep school before trying out boarding – so that means they will be living near the children’s school,” one education expert who asked not to be named said. The most likely locations are thought to be the Cotswolds, where Harry and Meghan lived before moving, Northamptonshire close to the Spencers or one of the other home counties close to London, perhaps Surrey or Buckinghamshire. For now, the couple are expected to push on with their filmmaking and other media projects – Meghan has done a deal with a streaming company to show Cookie Queens, her documentary about the Girl Scouts and the couple are working on other projects with Netflix under a “first look” deal that replaced a more lucrative contract. She will continue promoting her As Ever brand of lifestyle products. For Harry, the focus has always been on his charity work. Big question remains over Harry and Meghan’s security arrangements By Lizzie Dearden, Alannah Francis and Caroline WheelerHarry and Meghan are returning to the UK without publicly-funded security arrangements in place – but this could be reassessed as a result of their permanent relocation, The i Paper understands. Because of their status as non-working royals, the Sussexes are not automatically entitled to publicly-funded police protection in Britain. A source close to the Royal Family suggested it was unlikely that the couple had “done anything” yet about their security arrangements given that they had only informed the King of their decision Sunday. The body that decides who gets this protection, the Executive Committee for the Protection of Royalty and Public Figures known as Ravec, removed this entitlement from Harry and Meghan after they stepped down from their royal roles and left Britain in 2020. The Ravec committee includes senior Home Office officials and police officers, as well as representatives of the royal household. The 2020 decision sparked a long-running legal battle that Harry lost last year. But the ruling left the possibility of Harry receiving state-funded security in the future open. Ravec’s decision meant that level of protection could only be provided if approved on a case-by-case basis and justified by “particular and specific circumstances” as part of a “bespoke” arrangement for the Duke of Sussex. It means that the level of publicly-funded security – which gives the royals access to armed protection – during previous visits to the UK has been “informed by relevant threat assessments” by Britain’s intelligence services and has taken in the views of the Metropolitan Police. It is understood that this may change now that he is permanently relocating with his wife and children. A private security source told The i Paper that a professionally managed private security programme for a family requiring substantial year-round protection could readily run into seven figures annually. Richard Aitch, a former member of the Royal Military Police’s close protection unit, said costs in the region of £2m were a minimum baseline, and there was potential the bill could even exceed £6m per year “If school runs will be built into the protection operation, then there could be more than six vehicles used throughout different moves at any one time should Harry and Meghan be at separate venues, and the children requiring constant protection when at school,” he said. Aitch, who has worked in the sector for 30 years and acted as a personal bodyguard for high-profile figures, strongly believes that private protection for long-term, daily needs is no substitute for police protection for Prince Harry and his family. “If the commercial effort in delivering protection is unnecessarily impeded by Ravec or unbalanced in the mitigations and controls of risk then I will expect a case of ‘when’ not ‘if’ a serious incident occurs untoward,” he said.