Prince Harry Is Bringing His Family to Britain

0:01Harry and Meghan are bringing their kids to Britain, but there is a major sticking point. King Charles publishes his tax bill for the first time in history, and the US government is preparing to release its files on Prince Harry. I'm Jack Royston, Newsweek's Chief Royal Correspondent, and this is Newsweek's Royal Report. Hello, listeners, and welcome to the show. So Harry and Meghan will bring Prince Archie and Princess a little bit to Britain. We know this thanks to an exclusive in news.com.au by Bronte Coy, who previous guest on this royal podcast. But there's a little bit more going on than that.

0:37First of all, another news story that broke was that we now know that Buckingham Palace is offering a royal residence to the Sussex family to stay in, which has some benefits, including the fact that it will come with baked in police protection because royal residences are protected by the police. And this has caught this whole thing, by the way, has caused widespread jubilation among those who support Harry and Meghan and those who want royal reconciliation and excitement. Obviously, there are still those people who hate Harry and Meghan who think that the king should just tell them never to come back to Britain again.

1:08But everybody is kind of missing a really important part of it, which is wrapped in all of this coverage, including some quite inaccurate stories. There is still this dispute between Harry and Meghan, and on the one hand, the Home Office, and on the one hand, the Palace, about whether the family get police protection. So what we've been told, our understanding, including me from my contacts as well, is that the Palace have offered some kind of an apartment in a royal residence in line with Preston, partly because they've done that before. This has made everybody think it might be Buckingham Palace, because that's what they've offered in the past, and the past they've offered an apartment at Buckingham Palace, but they haven't had an answer.

1:48That's what we've been told. It has not, as of this moment, been accepted. Now, you know, my information is very much like, this is just a purely factual statement. We're not having a go at anybody. It is simply a matter of fact that an apartment has been offered and it has not currently been accepted. It may still be. I have it double sourced that it's not been accepted, despite the fact that some people are reporting it has been. But more to the point, I do think that the fact hasn't been accepted yet is not purely procedural. And I think what's going on here, actually, and let me take a moment Before I get into the meaty conflict of it, I do just want to say it would be amazing, I think, for actually for both sides, if the king could see his grandkids again.

2:31Archie and Lily haven't been to Britain in four years. The last time they came was in June 2022 when Lily was one year old. So in other words, she's got no memories of that event. And even Archie was only three. Now, kids are all different. Some kids will remember stuff from when they were three. A lot of kids will not remember that. and particularly into later life. When Archie's 30, is he really going to remember meeting the king when he was three? Probably not realistically. So this time round, Lily even is going to be five years old, or she is already five years old. And Archie obviously is seven.

3:03So they're going to have real concrete memories of this. This is their first opportunity to actually build a lifelong memory of the experience of travelling to a royal palace, potentially, and meeting their real-life king grandfather. But also it's an opportunity to form an actual emotional bond, an emotional connection to Charles, who, let's remember, has cancer. Now, I'm not in the camp that says he's approaching death's door. I don't think he is. I think he could live for another 10 years. But needless to say, Harry and Meghan are not over there all the time. The last time was four years ago.

3:35I mean, that's halfway to 10 years anyway. So there's a lot of really real positives here for Harry and Meghan on the table. But it's totally possible that this whole thing could still disintegrate because of this issue of police security. And the reason I think, in my view, that Harry has not simply bitten the king's hand off and said, yes, fantastic, please give us this apartment in a royal residence. When can we arrive? When can we move in? Give us the keys. Is because I think that Harry is still holding out hope that he's going to be given close protection, which is a very different state of affairs.

4:12So a royal residence has a security cordon around it. You know, the police guard the entrances. If you want to get in, you have to show your ID. You know, if somebody just decides that they're just going to make a run for it and try and get in, they'll be instantly jumped on by armed police with submachine guns. It's very, you know, at Buckingham Palace, it's a very high level of security. I know because I've been through it numerous times. and you have to be, you know, you don't just have to show your ID on arrival. They run a whole security vetting process. You have to hand over your details before, like a couple of days or so before you arrive so that they can run security vetting on you.

4:49So it's very, very high level of security. And they actually have soldiers there as well, the guards, you know. So it's a very, very high level of security. Harry and his family would certainly be safe, completely safe inside the palace. but the fact that Harry has not jumped at this offer is an indication that he's hoping for something else. He's hoping he won't need this offer, basically. Now, there are clear downsides to Buckingham Palace, which I'll get into, but first of all, I think what Harry's really hoping here is that the Home Office are going to turn around and say to Harry that he can have his Metropolitan Police bodyguards back either on all future visits to Britain or, at the very least, on this visit to Britain for the duration of the visit.

5:34And he just hasn't basically been told whether he will or not yet. And I think that's what the sticking point is here. But it's kind of heartbreaking in a way to me. Now, I know some people would just say that the only thing that Harry and Meghan should have is pure misery for the rest of their lives. I'm not actually in that camp. I've made many criticisms of them in the past myself. And I understand the criticisms that people make of them. And I think that they can be very frustrating people. but I do actually I think it would be I'd send a really powerful message if Harry and Charles could patch things up and could repair that damaged relationship and it would say a lot about the role that the monarchy can play showing leadership to ordinary people about how to pursue peace and reconciliation and be big enough to put the past behind you let's not forget they are a Christian family who you know Christianity teaches turning the other cheek so I'm pro-reconciliation But I think this could all fall apart based on the fact that Harry's still working off this very binary impression of what security means, that he is in danger if he doesn't have a police protection team and it's not safe to bring his children to Britain.

6:43And then if he has them, then he's safe. And as I've said on this podcast before, I don't view this that way. And I don't think the Home Office view it that way either. I don't think the Palace do either. I think the Home Office perspective, in fact, actually, if you look through the Home Office, the court documents filed by the Home Office lawyers, which, you know, there's judgments in this. Not everything is online, but the judgments in this case are. So you can go to the judiciary website and dig out the judgments. It's Duke of Sussex versus the Secretary of State for the Home Department. And you go through the finer points.

7:14Actually, the Home Office describe these police protection teams as mitigation. They mitigate the security risk. They don't remove it. They don't remove the threat to you or the risk to you. They mitigate that risk. So even from that wording, you can see that the home office attitude is that this isn't binary anyway. Some people are at risk and so they get offered this mitigation, which is that they have a police protection team who escort them everywhere they go. And that makes them safer than if they didn't have it. And there is definitely a difference and a significant difference between a police protection team and a private security detail.

7:50But the difference is not, like, it's not the difference between safety and danger. It's the difference between a team, you know, it's a better level of security. But, I mean, take a look at America. You know, Donald Trump, there was an attempt on his life. He very nearly was assassinated while he had a protection team. Charlie Kirk was assassinated while he had a private security detail. But if Charlie Kirk had had a police protection team, would they really have stopped that? But, you know, when somebody takes a shot at you with a long barrelled rifle, you know, from distance, from a couple of hundred yards away, is there anything a police team can do anyway?

8:29You know, you look back through the annals of royal history and there have been a couple of attempts on Queen Elizabeth's life or at least, you know, close to. So one in New Zealand, actually both in 1981, there were two incidents. One in London at Trooping the Colour, someone fired a blank at her while she was on horseback. and she basically just calmly steadied her horse and then the police arrested the bloke. Again, they didn't even shoot him anyway. They arrested him. And then the same year, somebody in New Zealand took a pop at her with a real rifle and missed. And again, he was just arrested.

9:01He didn't even go to prison. He went to a psychiatric unit because he had mental health problems from which he tried to break out so that he could kill Prince Charles, as Charles was at the time. So in Britain, these people don't necessarily even get shot anyway, even when they try to kill the monarch of the United Kingdom. They don't necessarily guarantee to get shot. So what you're talking about is it's not binary anyway. And what Harry's at risk of doing here is letting this issue get to him to the point that it ruins what is a fantastic opportunity for him. If Harry just says yes, and I think this is what the Home Office is expecting Harry to do, I think the Home Office is expecting Harry to just make his plans, just plan whatever he's going to do.

9:41Whatever your trip is, plan your trip, tell us what you're doing, do it. If we can give you a police protection team, we will. If we don't think you qualify for it, we won't give it. And they expect him to just go about his business and do his plans anyway and live his life. And what Harry wants is to be told before he makes any of these plans, whether he's going to get the police team or not, so that he can build his whole program around whether he's going to have a police team. And I think the more that Harry does that, he's going to drive himself up the wall and he's going to drive himself to distraction because Because Harry still blames all of this, partly on the royal household.

10:16He still thinks that basically the king could get him his police team if he wanted it, if he wanted to. Harry thinks that if Charles wanted the Sussex family to have a metropolitan police bodyguard everywhere they went in Britain, then he could snap his fingers and it would happen. And, you know, who's to say that maybe he isn't even right? But the longstanding palace position is that it's not appropriate for the monarch to do that. because basically it shouldn't be the case. It might be the case because privilege has huge impact in Britain still. And there are other times when the monarchy has used that privilege, I would argue, certain investigations that didn't go very far and so on.

11:00But their basic position is an important one in a democracy, which is that you shouldn't really just have this situation where the monarch can say, well, I want this. and then heaven on earth gets moved to make it happen because the government should be left to do the government's work. And this is the palace position. The guidance that has gone to journalists is we have not secured beefed up enhanced police security for the Sussex family because it's not our place to do so. We cannot make an offer to them to have better police protection. It's down to the Home Office to decide. but what they're offering is well you can stay in a royal residence and that gives you de facto police protection for the period of time in which you're at home in that royal residence you are basically untouchable that is what is within the monarchy's power to offer I think the Sussex perspective is well actually if there's an invitation to an event like let's say for example Charles was to physically go to Harry's event so the reason Harry is coming to Britain in the first place is to cover a year to go before the 2027 Invictus Games.

12:11Invictus Games, obviously, his tournament for wounded veterans. For those who don't know, the 2027 edition is happening in Birmingham. It's England's second biggest city, Britain's second biggest city. It's in a place called the Midlands, which is like, well, it's called the Midlands because it's in the middle of England. And so it's out of London, a couple of hours away on the train from Buckingham Palace. Harry's going to spend quite a bit of time up there. so he's not going to be in London for the whole of his stay anyway it's all happening in July and so it's basically you know it's a situation where the palace can they can only really help him as far as they're concerned with that little bit of it if the king were to go to the one year to go and Victor's events then that events would need police, would need greater security oversight and the king would have his police team present when he arrived so I suppose he could do a little bit more, but I think the palace's perspective is just, look, it's not up to us to resolve this for you.

13:13And my view on it is like Harry, if he stays at Buckingham Palace, you know, and he's photographed driving Meghan and the kids through the gates at Buckingham Palace, then he is an insider. Like he's literally on the inside. He is not an outsider and he is not in exile in the most literal sense that he is inside the palace, having been invited to stay there. And that's a massive win for him. If he can just find it in himself to manage risk in a different way, that's all this comes down to, is that it's not about just accepting that you're living your life teetering on the edge of a precipice in constant danger, potentially at risk of being attacked at any moment.

13:55It's about understanding that everybody is at risk all the time. and if ordinary people allowed themselves to have Harry's mentality, then we'd never do anything. Like take, for example, I was driving my family happily along. When was it? It was actually shortly after the Queen passed away, so it must have been half term in 2022. And we were driving home from a holiday away at a hotel in the countryside, and I just stopped at a set of traffic lights. Laurie stopped behind me. I was in a right-turn filter lane, and the lights to go straight ahead turned green. Lorry driver misread the signal. Bam, plowed straight into the back of my car.

14:34I did literally nothing wrong and I had my eight-year-old son in the back who absolutely flipped out. He's eight now, actually. He must have been, what would he have been at the time? This was like four years ago. He must have been like, probably he was five. And he like flipped out and started screaming at the lorry driver when the guy got out of his cabin. But it was really shocking for all of us. And imagine if I just then took that experience and decided it's not safe for my son to get in the car with me. And my son never got in a car ever again. Like that would be crazy. But it's like there's no one protecting him from having that experience again.

15:09People die in car crashes that are literally not their fault on any level whatsoever. It's not completely preventable. And ordinary people have to manage this level of risk. and they have to, you know, when I was a teenager in London, you're a teenager growing up in London, you go through brief periods when you get mugged sometimes. And it kind of started weirdly like clockwork when I turned 16 and was done by the time I turned 18. And that was the end of it. And I never had a problem again. It's just this weird period you have to go through in your life. It's not very nice, but like there's no right to police protection for ordinary people.

15:46We have 650 MPs. We've had two MPs murdered. Since 2010, we've had two MPs murdered at constituency surgeries and one stabbed who survived. And so what a constituency surgery is, is that if you're a member of parliament, the equivalent of a kind of congressman, just a backbench, normal member of parliament, you have to, you legally have to have meetings with your constituents. Your constituents, your public, the people who you serve, have a right to meet you face to face, to ask you questions and to tell you their problems and ask for your help. and so it's at those constituency surgeries that people have been attacked but then also sometimes very aggressive protesters like not your kind of guys holding signs cheering and being merry but like really aggressive people will wait outside the house of commons for specific politicians to turn up and then follow them down the road haranguing them and shouting at them so this is what our 650 members of parliament have to deal with and they don't get close protection for the apart from anything else, there's 650 of them.

16:45Like it's not possible to give this level of protection to everybody. And they just have to manage the risk. Like they just have to get on with it. And, um, and that means that, uh, you know, they, in order to do their jobs and to live their lives, they have to tolerate a level of risk. And that's all that Harry has to do is to take a different approach to managing that risk. So it might be, you know, be less controversial in public so that people hate you less like it might be um just you know like choose a car instead of a train even if it's more inconvenient it might be um i mean you know we're talking about like the it's nothing's gonna happen like this is the crazy thing britain is a really safe country there are no guns here like no one's gonna shoot him because you can't like you can't buy guns but you also can't buy bullets like it's a really really safe country.

17:34Just don't do anything that's really crazy. Don't stoke up, you know, people's anger and manage the risk using your private security team in a way that allows you to live your life. Like the guy went to war in Afghanistan. It has to be possible for it to be safe for him to live a life in Britain. You know, loads of people are controversial and hate it. You know, we've had other attacks on politics. Nigel Farage got a milkshake thrown in his face. A politician from years ago called John Prescott got an egg thrown in his face from close range and responded by punching the bloke in the face. Loads of people have this stuff happen to them.

18:18Just manage risk. And actually nothing like that has happened to the royals, really. Like nothing on that level where someone's got right up in their grill being physically aggressive has happened to the royals in this whole time. So, you know, since 2010, when Stephen Timms, the MP, was stabbed, nothing like that has happened to the royal family. So I think it's time for Harry to just put this one aside and see the win here. Like there is such a massive win sitting on the table for him. And there's loads that this visit could achieve. You know, one of the things being talked about now is the possibility, if not probability, that Princess Diana could form a part of it because, you know, Diana's 65th birthday, would be July the 1st.

18:59Next year is the 30th anniversary since her death. This is an opportunity, which is also, you know, it's going to coincide roughly with the Invictus Games. Like Harry's going to be back in Britain in July next year, presumably. Certainly next year anyway. And in August, it'll be the 30th anniversary of Princess Diana's death. Birmingham is a stone's throw from the Spencer family, Diana's family's ancestral home where her brother still lives. Charles Spencer lives at Althrop. Harry could take the kids there. That's where Diana's grave is on an island in the middle of the estate so he could take the kids out there.

19:32I'm not aware, he has taken Megan there before, I'm not aware of him ever taking the children there, I don't think he has. He'd probably have put that in his book, which, you know, their last visit was 2022 and his book came out January 2023, so presumably we'd know about it if they'd been there. And that would be an incredibly moving experience for them. And then when the 30th anniversary came about, they would be able to, you know, people will be talking about it most likely, it might be getting to school especially for archie might be getting disgust at school and he'll be able to say oh yeah you know i had this experience i met my great uncle charles and he told me about his sister and i saw the grave and i you know they'll have this sense of connection to this incredibly inspirational figure who is a part of their lives in a sense but also that only through being told about her by harry right now um so that could be really important and moving for the kids but in order for that to happen harry has to get the kids up to or from presumably bp um and without police protection and so he's probably telling himself that that's not possible unless he can get those bodyguards those police bodyguards and i just don't think it's necessary to that level like i totally understand why he wants them but i think this is a situation where harry just has to take the w like to bring your kids bring megan it's gonna be great like just accept that you You don't have the police team.

20:54Stay at Buckingham Palace. Try and get a meeting with the king if it's possible. Keep the atmosphere happy. Don't sour the atmosphere with the king by making security the issue. There's people running around saying it's emotional blackmail, and it's not totally wrong. It kind of is a little bit emotionally blackmail. In May 2025, in a BBC interview, Harry said, basically, I'm not asking Charles to grant me police, protection all he needs to do is get out of the way and let the experts do their job so in other words he was suggesting charles was blocking his efforts to get the home office to give him his police team so that is kind of a little bit emotional blackmaily let's be honest about it and um if harry lets this go and just accepts that like danger comes from different forms and there are dangers in america that don't exist in britain not getting sanctimonious about that it's just effects there are uh from you know gun you know guns of the kind that you literally are not available like there is no there are no ar-15s like nobody in britain is going to turn up at a royal event with an ar-15 they do not exist in this country right it's not going to happen um and so you know he has accepted the risks that come from living in america a country where people can buy can walk into a shop and buy an ar-15 and you know a gun's capable of taking somebody out 200 yards.

22:19I'm not saying you shouldn't move to America or you shouldn't do it or it's not safe for him. I'm just saying that we all accept risk. And there's something in Harry's psychological approach to this that doesn't allow him to accept the risk of not having a police team because it fits into this supercharged dynamic between him and the royals because he sees it as being something that was robbed from him cruelly and neglectfully by the royal household. Because I think Harry still does blame the royal household for this because they sit on the home office committee that makes the decision that, you know, there is a representative of the king, a specific royal family member, you know, it came out in the court papers, Clive Alderton is one of the royal aides who sits on Ravek.

23:02And I think Harry basically thinks that that is the reason why he doesn't get this police team. And actually, if he could just get out of that kind of injury that he has experienced, that emotional and psychological injury, and see this as though it was the same risk he experiences when crossing the road or riding his bicycle you know somebody could hit him in a car when he's riding his bicycles like you know someone could fall off a building and land it you know there are lots of ways that something can happen to a person and if he could just try and see the risk that he takes when he comes to britain in the same way that he sees the risk he takes when he moves to a country where you can buy ar-15s like as just a risk that you manage but you just you just accept that you've taken on that risk and then you completely continue living your life and it's fine and i think that's where harry needs to get to otherwise he is at risk of throwing away a massive win which is what this is on paper and that would be a shame for him but i think it'd also be a shame for the king i think the king would really love to see archie and lily and you know it would it would be a healing moment i think harry just needs to take an l on security so that he can get a win on healing and reconciliation and rebuilding his relationship with his father, all of which will be fantastic for him.

24:14It's going to raise the profile of the Invictus Games. He's trying to rebuild his bond with Britain. I just think he has to let this happen, and he will be in clover if it does. And on that note, I'm going to take a quick break, but don't forget to rate and review The Royal Report on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you get your favourite shows. We are a YouTube show too, so if you're watching there, Don't forget to like and subscribe. And when I'm back, King Charles has published his tax return. It's the first time that a British monarch has done that in history.

24:52Hello and welcome back to the show. And we now know that King Charles has paid about 30 million pounds, which is about 40 million dollars in tax since he became king, which was September 2022. So it's kind of like two and a half years. That's the amount of money he's paid. We know this because he's taken the completely unprecedented step for the first time in history of publishing his tax bill, by which we mean just literally the amount of tax he's paid. We're not getting all the receipts from everything he's deducted from his tax. But we do have some quite interesting information. And this has come alongside the standard royal family accounts, which tell us what their public funding is, which is called the sovereign grant.

25:39And the sovereign grant is going up and actually his tax bill also went up. So it does seem like business is booming for the royals, which, you know, if you're a royalist, that probably sounds like brilliant news. But also it's kind of tricky for the monarchy because the monarchy is in this place at the moment where young people don't like them as much. They're getting less popular with young people. And one of the concerns is, well, maybe that's because of like this idea that privilege is a bad thing. Maybe it's because people see the monarchy as a symbol of inequality. So all of that kind of hangs over this.

26:10And then at the same time, the wolf is kind of at the door because the MPs in Parliament, actually British politicians, are starting to try to kind of increase the amounts of scrutiny and accountability of the monarchy by Parliament, which was basically unheard of previously. The politicians in Parliament are actually by the rules of the House of Commons not allowed to criticise the monarchy, dating back to the time when, you know, Parliament and the Crown were at war with each other and so on. So, yeah, there's this convention that they're not allowed to criticise the royals. So they have to kind of tiptoe around this whole thing in order to try and hold them to account.

26:47But that's basically part, I think, of the reason why the King's done this. But let's talk about some of these increases in both the private income and also the public funding because it's growing a lot faster than wages are in Britain. And so those questions about inequality, they are relevant. And, you know, the information we're learning, The figures we're getting are kind of amplifying, not easing some of those concerns. So, right, let's look at the details. So what we've got, I've given the overall figure is£30 million, but we've also got a breakdown. So 2023 to 2024, Charles paid£11.7 million, around$15 million.

27:24And that rose to£12.9 million the following year, around$17 million. So that is a£1.2 million rise. It's about 10.3%. the increase. That suggests basically the taxable income that gave rise to that figure will also have gone up unless he kind of randomly decided to just pay more tax or change the amount that he was deducting. Then it kind of implies a growth anyway in taxable income. And that is far beyond wage growth, which wage growth excluding bonuses in Britain stands about 3.4%. So, I'm kind of saying it's double, but it's actually virtually triple. And actually, it gets even worse when you take into account inflation, because inflation virtually wipes out wage growth in Britain.

28:16Excluding bonuses are barely growing faster than inflation anyway. So, once you factor that in, it's about 0.1%. It's really, really bad for people at the moment. Meanwhile, the monarchy is getting a massively above inflation pay rise. So that is something that I think Republic, the anti-monarchy campaign group, are going to make hay with and say, you know, this is not right. Why is this happening? Why does the monarchy need its pay to go up faster than inflation? It's actually similar numbers for the public funding. So the public funding of the royal family has been really complicated over the last 10 years because there's been all these refurbishment works at Buckingham Palace.

28:54They've been kind of maintaining and doing up the property and preserving it for future generations, which is all very important to do, of course. But they got given a whole load of extra funding in order to pay for that refurbishment work. Now we're getting to the point where this next year is going to be the final year and is then going to revert back down to a lower number. So the lower number it will revert down to, and this is hilarious, is£99.9 million. pounds. Obviously, this is really funny because in advertising or in marketing, I think they got rid of like 99p products a while ago. And there was a big pivot into what they called the round pound because they realised that people knew what time it was when they got something that was like 99p, that it was just to stop it looking, to make it look like a lower number.