Meghan Markle interview: Royal expert on security fears

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The Duke of Sussex told the US TV legend that when he and Meghan were in Canada, having stepped down as senior royals, they were told their security would be removed. The justification given was “a change in status”, but Harry argued there had been no change in threat and so they still needed security. This has reignited the debate as to who exactly should pay for the Sussexes’ security, but one aspect that has not been discussed much is where the Royal Family’s security usually comes from.

Royal protection officers are lent to the Royal Family by the Metropolitan Police and funded by the Home Office.

This means they are UK police officers who will likely have lives and families in Britain, and may be slightly averse to being told they have to move countries due to the Sussexes’ plan to live across the Atlantic permanently.

Pod Save the Queen is hosted by Ann Gripper and features Daily Mirror royal editor Russell Myers.

Mr Myers argued that the couple should have just “taken it on the chin” and funded their own private security, because they can easily afford it.

He added that royal protection officers might not want to be dragged all over the world at the whim of the Sussexes.

By contrast, private security officers will sign up to a job knowing that travel would be a big part of it and not necessarily having the same London-based ties.

He said: “Just take it on the chin, you’ve got loads of money, you’re going to earn loads of money, so then you’ve got to get your own private security.

“Especially living in the US, or they were coming up with, ‘We want to live in New Zealand, we want to live in Canada, South Africa, maybe the States’.

“Well, these protection officers, that’s not just their job, that they don’t have families and lives.

“They would actually have to be travelling with them all the time.

“And these people are based within the Met Police in London, because they’re part of a specialist royalty protection group.

“And the appetite to work with the couple in between Windsor and London was very, very slim let alone travelling all over the world with them.

“So there were an awful lot of things to consider that they hadn’t considered and I thought that was a bit short-sighted of them.”

Ms Gripper added: “Whereas if you applied for a job to be one of George Clooney’s security guards you’d probably get told what proportion of your time would be spent where and know what you would be going into it.”

Mr Myers replied: “And the issue was that they just didn’t have a plan.

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“They kept rallying against the system, saying, ‘Oh the system isn’t made for us, we’re trying to make it work’. Well they didn’t have a coherent plan in place.

“And every time, it is my understanding, people were saying to them, ‘If you’ve got a plan in place, we would make it work for you or we would try to help you to make it work’.

“But how is the Home Secretary or the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police supposed to sell that job?

“Well, someone of that age range and experience is most probably going to have a family life, so the pool of people was further diminished.”

After their security was pulled, Harry and Meghan moved to Los Angeles, where they stayed in the mansion of their friend Tyler Perry, who also provided security.

Meghan Markle and Harry: Expert on 'concerning' security breach

They then bought their own mansion in Montecito in the Santa Barbara area worth £11.4million.

Explaining why they moved to the US from Canada, Harry said: “The biggest concern was that while we were in Canada, in someone else’s house, I then got told at short notice security was going to be removed.

“By this point, courtesy of the Daily Mail, the world knew our exact location.

“So suddenly it dawned on me, ‘Hang on second, the borders could be closed, we’re going to have our security removed, who knows how long this lockdown’s going to be, the world knows where we are, it’s not safe, it’s not secure’.”

Harry said he never thought his security would be taken away because he had inherited the risk associated with being a member of the Royal Family.

Meghan said she wrote to the family asking them not to remove security and to “keep my husband safe”.

The response was, according to the Duchess, that it was just not possible.

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Oprah With Meghan and Harry was on ITV at 9pm on Monday March 8. You can watch the full interview on the ITV Hub.

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