Why Prince Harry’s loss in legal battle against the Daily Mail is also a loss for the rest of the British royal family

Prince Harry and six other claimants, including other celebrities like Elton John, Elizabeth Hurley, and Sadie Frost, have lost their case against the tabloid the Daily Mail.

The claimants were accusing the publication of obtaining information illegally and the high court has ruled that they did not prove the Daily Mail used illegal tactics to get sensitive information that ended up getting published.

“The claimants had to prove that the information complained of had been obtained unlawfully. The court rejected the argument that, simply because information was private, and because Associated [the Daily Mail’s parent company] could not positively explain how it had been sourced, the relevant article must have been unlawfully sourced.”

The ruling concludes a complicated case that’s been ongoing for four years, featuring at least one private investigator who’s been accused of “switching sides” midway through to go against the claimants after allegedly admitting in a statement that he had engaged in phone tampering and other illegal activities. He now says the statement is a fake.

But the point is, no matter how much of a mess the trial has been, the claimants have lost their case – and of course the most high-profile claimant here is Prince Harry so, in the news, he’ll be wearing most of the defeat. I imagine the tabloids will be happier about this than if England were to win the World Cup. In a jubilant and defiant statement released after the ruling was made public, representatives for the Daily Mail wrote the following:

“This is a magnificent vindication of the Daily Mail’s journalism. For some of the most outrageous allegations made when the case was launched in a blaze of publicity four years ago – placing bugs in people’s cars and homes, listening to calls as they were made and illicitly accessing bank accounts – no credible evidence was ever presented. The reputations of our decent and hard working journalists were terribly impugned, and today they have been exonerated. As the judgement clearly shows, every single article was legitimately sourced.”

It indeed a “vindication” of the “Daily Mail’s” … something… but I’m not sure we can call it journalism. It is also an emboldening of their “journalism”, if that’s what we have to call it, because they will take from this a blessing to continue their f-ckery against their usual targets, the biggest of which are the Sussexes. And whoever else they decide is their enemy – more and more that means women and progressive people of colour. And, in my opinion, social progress, period. So, if journalism, real journalism, is meant to be a pillar of democracy, I’m not sure we can call the Daily Mail’s victory today a step forward.

For Harry and Meghan, this outcome ensures that the way they are covered in the Daily Mail and most of the other British tabloids, really, will continue, with likely much more ferocity, as if it weren’t already bad enough. But for the rest of the British royal family, it’s also a loss, because so many members of the institution, even at the highest levels, are deep in bed with these people, pretty much beholden to them. And this only reinforces that contract, in a way that isn’t actually beneficial to them, although they’re too stubborn and too scared to see it that way. Because the truth is, the monarchy doesn’t hold the power in this relationship with the tabloid media. The “great” British monarchy, an enterprise that has long considered itself superior and above reproach, is actually the weaker partner in this toxic marriage that they can’t cut themselves out of. Imagine that – the sovereign being submissive to a tabloid, that is the reality. And this is what Harry was trying to break them out of, even when he was an official working senior member of the Firm. For all that he’s been accused of – undermining the royal family, causing fractures and dissent – what his relatives and their advisors could not see is that they were already imprisoned by this dirty blood pact, and the way it’s looking now, they’ll never, ever be free.

This is our Squawk post today. Let’s continue the discussion there. (App link here)