The Internet is in up in debate over whether Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, the wife of Prince Harry, was correct to close her car door on arriving at an event in London this week. But the real story isn’t Markle’s conduct and the question of protocol — it’s what her actions say about British protective security.
And they do not say good things. After all, the basic protective procedure for arrival at an even event is for a security officer to open the door and then stand by the open door until the protectee has moved to a secure environment. The reason for holding the door open is so as to provide a safe haven in the event that an attack takes place as the protectee arrives. Because protected persons are transported in armored vehicles, the vehicle offers a good degree of cover in the event of an attack. Watch a video of President Trump at an event and you will see the Secret Service standing by the door with it open at all times. The exception is an event in which the site has already been secured from external threats.
In this case, however, as in many cases in the U.K., that procedure didn’t happen. It didn’t happen, even though the event Markle attended was only secured to a cursory degree (in video of the arrival you can see a woman in a nearby window taking photos of Markle). And that failure is down to the officers who protect Markle, Harry, other members of the Royal Family, and senior British government officials. Namely, the Metropolitan Police’s Royalty and Specialist Protection division. That speaks to something broader: The protective security arrangements this unit employs are insufficient.
So the ultimate story here is not whether it was right for Markle to shut her car door or not (and I would suggest at the basic level of decorum it speaks highly of Markle’s natural class), but whether Markle’s security is up to scratch. And unfortunately the answer is the same as applied to other British officials: no.
