Within Prince Harry’s BBC interview, he revealed that his father and royal household have encouraged other governments to leave the Sussexes without security. While that was news to many, we’ve seen it in real time over the years, especially when the Sussexes travel to other countries. Buckingham Palace has repeatedly thrown tantrums about Harry and Meghan’s travels to Nigeria, Colombia, Ukraine, Canada, Jamaica, The Netherlands, Germany, Lesotho and more. The palace and the British press were especially angry that the Sussexes went to Nigeria and Colombia at the invitation of those governments, and that the governments ensured that the Sussexes traveled with high-level VIP security. Well, the Mail got a tip that the Sussexes recently had a family vacation in Mexico. The Mail was inspired to write yet another hilariously unhinged piece about the Sussexes traveling to every country other than the UK: “Every place Prince Harry has visited since leaving the Royal Family – including ‘no-go zones’ – despite saying he and his family are not safe in UK.”
Prince Harry has been accused of hypocrisy after attacking the Royal Family for not providing him and his family security in the UK, despite travelling to multiple crime-ridden and war-struck areas. After losing his battle for taxpayer-funded armed police bodyguards when in the UK – putting him on the hook for £1.5million in costs – he has called on the Home Secretary to step in and review the body which authorises protection for senior royals.
Despite this, as revealed exclusively by MailOnline, Meghan and Harry took their son Archie to the Cuixmala estate in Jalisco, an area where there are high levels of crime and kidnapping. This was reported after Meghan posted a photo of Archie on Instagram for his sixth birthday. The US State Department has a travel advisory in place to Americans to ‘reconsider’ travel to Jalisco due to violent crime, gang activity and kidnapping in the state.
In April the prince met with dozens of wounded soldiers in Lviv, Ukraine, a city which has been pummeled by Russian jets, missiles and kamikaze drones at least 30 times since the war began. At least 33 people are believed to have lost their lives in bombings in the city since 2022. In one attack last year seven people were killed and 50 were injured when Russia attacked with drones and hypersonic missiles. The last attack was in November.
Harry is the most senior royal to visit Ukraine but is not believed to have informed Buckingham Palace in advance of his trip. It is also been branded ‘highly political’ in view of Donald Trump’s policy on Ukraine. Veteran royal correspondent and commentator Richard Palmer said: ‘The reaction has been uniform. People are saying “hang on he’s come over because he needs police protection because he’s not safe in the UK. But then he’s gone to a warzone in Ukraine”. While the city is not on the frontline – it is getting regular bombardments so it is quite a dangerous place to go.’
In October Harry visited the small mountain kingdom of Lesotho, South Africa, on a solo tour of the region. Harry’s connection with Lesotho, a nation of 2.3million surrounded by South Africa, began when he visited after leaving school and worked with orphaned children. The area has a high crime rate where foreigners are frequently targeted, robbed and have been car-jacked and killed, according to the US Travel Advisory.
In August Harry and Meghan visited Colombia despite both the UK and US governments issuing travel alerts for the crime-ridden country amid fears over the risk of terrorism, civil unrest and kidnapping.
I actually love how upset and hysterical the Mail gets over Harry and Meghan’s travels. It’s the refusal to state the obvious – it’s the biggest “tell” of the press and palace’s agenda – that Harry and Meghan only travel to countries in which they’ve been invited, and where they will have high-level security. Twenty paragraphs devoted to screaming “how dare they go to a crime-ridden country or warzone” without acknowledging that the governments of Ukraine, Nigeria and Colombia all provided security. As for this reported trip to Mexico… I mean, American tourism to Mexico is huge, especially to the state of Jalisco (Guadalajara and Puerto Vallarta are in Jalisco). It also sounds like the Sussexes stayed at a private estate?
Something else I’ve noticed about the reporting around the Sussexes’ security issues in the UK is that regardless of Charles’s machinations in 2020, QEII still ensured that the Sussexes had security for their visits when she was alive. The press always says “Harry’s security situation has been like this since 2020!” While technically that’s true, QEII developed a work-around so that Harry and Meghan could travel safely to the UK in 2021 and 2022. That work-around was abandoned when Charles became king. Which is a huge part of why Harry blames his father for this situation (because it’s Charles’s fault).
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