Royal family passports

[artquejtion]

Intrigued by a side discussion on the other thread, do the Royal Family hold diplomatic passports ?

I just always imagined things like visas etc would obviously be fast tracked, and of course VVIP transit thought airports, customs, etc, but never considered they would hold diplomatic status.

I think they count as Diplomats so they would benefit from Dip Immunity

That might explain why M's passport was 'taken away', maybe it had to be reissued as a diplomatic one.

@artquejtion

That might explain why M's passport was 'taken away', maybe it had to be reissued as a diplomatic one.

She would have had tons of public commitments and minions to book all her travel, sort visas etc. Plus she's American so different rules on entering EU and so on. Pretty normal for any high net worth individual to have someone managing all that stuff and holding key docs needed. But irritating I'm sure if you decide "fuck this for a game of soldiers, I'm going to Heathrow to get on the first plane in the morning" and then realise your passport is in a safe somewhere. But hostage ?

Every Senior Exec at the company I work at has his / her passport held by their PA who organizes all their travel (flights, cars, security etc.). It gets literally handed to them to check in etc. Most are non UK nationals. Equating this to being ''held hostage'' is ridiculous.. especially when she was seen travelling numerous times.

They don't have them I think I remember reading.

I really thought it was illegal to hold someone else's passport.

We have lived in several countries with my husbands work, sometimes we would not have our passports for weeks on end while our residence visas were being processed, He regularly needs visas for business trips, but my husbands PA has never held on to our passports.

I guess MM may have twisted what was an admin situation, to make it appear more dramatic and to fit the narrative.

@PAFMO

They don't have them I think I remember reading.

I just googled, seems only the Queen doesn't have a passport.

And I just learned that Royals have sovereign immunity and not diplomatic immunity, don't know the difference as I didn't goolge that one

Diplomatic immunity is basically an agreement that home countries can judge and discipline their own subjects for any crimes if they are in a host country on official business.

Sovereign immunity comes from the idea that the reigning monarch can’t act unlawfully as they rule (and the underling royals are doing the bidding of said monarch).

Obviously it’s a bit more complicated, and things have evolved somewhat. But that’s the basic premise.

Meghan stopped well short of saying she initially refused to hand over her passport and was forced, or that she demanded it back and was refused. That's probably because neither happened. All she actually said was that someone else had her passport. She probably agreed to it, and just left that part out. Maybe she forgot.

I’m in no way an expert but I’ve some first hand experience of high level visits from many years ago.

The comparison of (very) high net worth individuals and the royal family is not entirely correct. If you are a senior member of the British royal family any international visit, including private visits, is a huge security endeavour. Not just from the perspective of the UK but also for the host country. You can’t just show up in a different country with your own security and a holiday bag, it’s a diplomatic arrangement between governments. The royals wouldn’t holiday in countries in the absence of those arrangements because the risks are too high. To be honest, not many governments in the world would want to be responsible for the future British king having had an incident on their territory, so even if the royals tried to, it wouldn’t be allowed.

So, while I am not familiar with the ins and outs of who is holding which passport, based on my experience it’s very unlikely that you can organise any trip bypassing significant involvement from your office, because of the diplomatic expectations on both sides. This applies to other very high profile public figures, such as head of state individuals and their families. You wouldn’t have Carrie Johnson for example going on holiday anywhere without it having been agreed with security services both sides, and in fact many ambassador-level diplomats are banned from holidaying in so called hostile environments altogether.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that there’s the element of having a full team dealing with the logistics of travel - and you’d expect them to handle paperwork as part of that just like the CEOs / celebrities mentioned on this and other threads, and then there’s the diplomatic bilateral relationship side of things which is unique to very high level / status public officials, and that is a whole different story.

@IronCurtain I suspect you're right and you'd think she'd have been aware of this having dated Harry no? Given the risks, you be would forgiven for thinking she would welcome all this care for her wellbeing. I mean didn't they make a fuss about their security not being paid for when they decided they didn't want to be Royals anymore?

They really can't have it both ways.

She said the passport thing in a sentence designed cleverly to imply that she was some sort of princess trapped in a tower by the evil institution.

Whereas in reality everything about that sentence was connected to the absolute privilege of the position:

She said: “When I joined that family, that was the last time I saw my passport, my driving licence, my keys – all of that gets turned over,”

Passport was being take care of by someone else because she had a whole team of people to take care of booking and organising travel and visas for her.

Keys? What keys is she talking about? House keys, she lived in a palace and then a house on a crown estate with staff. Car keys? Any time she wanted to go out she had a driver. Or access to cars like all the other members of the royal family we see driving.

Licence? Her staff were probably working out some special treatment for her to get her US licence swapped for a UK one, or arrange the driving test she'd need as a foreign national to get a UK licence to be able to drive in the UK.

And she didn't have to take on that life of privilege there was always the option to live and work in the UK like the other non-official Royals such as Beatrice and Eugenie, Zara and Peter etc. I'm sure they all have to manage their own keys and passports like us regular folk.