• Prince Harry said he and his family will not be safe in the United Kingdom after his appeal to reinstate his state-funded security was denied
• Harry and his wife, Meghan Markle, stepped back from their roles as senior working royals in 2020, after which their security was downgraded
• Now, the Duke of Sussex won’t bring his children, Prince Archie or Princess Lilibet, to the U.K. because he says they won’t be properly protected there

Prince Harry says he fears for the safety of Meghan Markle, himself and their children in the United Kingdom after he lost his appeal to reinstate his state-funded security there.

The Duke of Sussex, 40, had his security downgraded five years ago when he stepped back from royal duties in 2020. His appeal to have his police protection reexamined was dismissed on May 2 by Judge Sir Geoffrey Vos and two other judges.

Shortly after the appeal was denied, Harry told the BBC that he, Meghan and their children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet, would not be properly protected if they were to return to the U.K. without security, claiming that “a duty of care” has been “completely thrown out of the window” with the ruling.

“At the heart of it, this is a family dispute, and it makes me really, really sad that we are sitting here today, five years later, where a decision that was made — most likely, in fact, I know — to keep us under the roof,” Harry said.

He continued, “But then once they realized that wasn’t going to work, once they realized that myself, my wife, my kids are happier outside of the institution, then please just look at the facts.”

“Look at the risk, look at the threat, look at the impact that if anything was to happen to me, my wife, or my father’s grandchildren. If anything was to happen to them, look where the responsibility lies,” he added.

Prince Harry said that the security issue is bigger than the rift with his family.

“Whether we agree or disagree — there’s a lot that we agree on, there’s a lot that we disagree on — that aside, where is the duty of care?” Harry asked. “Because as I said, life is precious, and it is very clear that from 2020, because I was no longer allowed an official role and because I decided to remove myself from the institution, that my life got devalued from the highest score to the lowest score overnight.”

“I don’t want history to repeat itself,” the Duke of Sussex said. “I think there’s a lot of other people out there, the majority, that also don’t want history to repeat itself. Through the disclosure process, I’ve discovered that some people want history to repeat itself, which is pretty dark.”

Harry’s mother, Princess Diana, was left without police protection after choosing to decline it following her divorce from the future King Charles. She died in a Paris car crash in 1997, being pursued by paparazzi and guarded only by private security.

He previously said he felt “history was repeating itself” during his relationship with Meghan but that he was adamant about not letting another woman close to him be mistreated by the press.

He said in the AppleTV+ docuseries The Me You Can’t See, “Do I have any regrets? Yeah. My biggest regret is not making more of a stance earlier on in my relationship with my wife and calling out the racism when I did. History was repeating itself. My mother was chased to her death while she was in a relationship with someone that wasn’t white and now look what’s happened. You want to talk about history repeating itself, they’re not going to stop until [Meghan] dies.”

Harry also said in a statement released on May 2: “This all comes from the same institutions that preyed upon my mother, that openly campaigned for the removal of our security, and that continue to incite hatred towards me, my wife and even our children, while at the same time protecting the very power that they should be holding accountable.”

Also in his BBC interview, Harry said he could not imagine bringing Archie, 5, or Lilibet, 3, back to the U.K. with Meghan after the May 2 ruling. He told the outlet, “I can’t see a world in which I would be bringing my wife and children back to the U.K. at this point.”

The prince, who lived in the U.K. for decades and served in the British military for years, said his children would miss “everything” in the country, a place he maintained he still “loves” and always has, “despite what some people in that country have done.”