The Queen DID back Brexit, says top BBC reporter
THE Queen supported Brexit and asked why the UK could not just ‘get out’ of the EU, it was dramatically claimed yesterday.
The BBC’s political editor Laura Kuenssberg said the monarch apparently made her views clear at a private lunch before the June referendum.
According to Miss Kuenssberg’s contact, the Queen told guests at the lunch: ‘I don’t see why we can’t just get out. What’s the problem?’
The claim was made on another day of positive news six months after the referendum vote, including:
A pro-Leave pressure group unveiled figures showing that leaving the single market and the customs union could deliver a £24 billion-a-year boost to the economy;
Former Bank of England governor Sir Mervyn King said the EU was ‘pretty unsuccessful’ in an economic sense and leaving it presented Britain with ‘opportunities’.
Miss Kuenssberg’s extraordinary claim follows a report in The Sun newspaper nine months ago, under the headline ‘Queen backs Brexit’.
Last night, Buckingham Palace said it had nothing more to add to the statement it issued in March, in response to the Sun report, which said the Queen neutral’.
Miss Kuenssberg, who grew up in Glasgow, said she did not run the story at the time because she had only one source. But her claims will reignite the debate over what the Queen’s private views are.
Speaking on Radio 4’s Today programme yesterday, Miss Kuenssberg said her ‘jaw hit the floor’ when an unnamed contact told her the Queen had told a private lunch that she could not see why Britain could not simply leave the bloc.
She said: ‘In a casual chat with one of my contacts, they said, “Do you know what? At some point this is going to come out, and I’m telling you now and I don’t know if the BBC would touch it, but the was ‘politically Queen told people at a private lunch that she thinks that we should leave the EU.
‘Apparently at this lunch, she said “I don’t see why we can’t just get out. What’s the problem?” ’
She added: ‘My jaw hit the floor. Very sadly, I only had one source. I spent the next few days trying to prove it. I couldn’t find the evidence.
‘Lo and behold, a couple of months later, someone else did. Of course, then ensued a huge row between that newspaper and the Palace over what had really been said or not said.’
The Sun always stood by its piece, saying it had two sources for the claim that the Queen had ‘let rip’ at then deputy prime minister Nick Clegg over Europe at a lunch at Windsor Castle in 2011.
Mr Clegg has named then justice secretary Michael Gove as a source, but Mr Gove has never confirmed the allegation. It is not known if Miss Kuenssberg’s source is the same as one of The Sun’s, or whether it is the same lunch.
A BBC spokesman said last night that neither the corporation nor Miss Kuenssberg would comment.
Last night Tory MP Andrew Bridgen said: ‘It’s not really a surprise the Queen is in favour of a sovereign constitutional monarchy. All the time we were campaigning for Leave, we said we were doing it for Queen and Country. The Queen is 90 years old and she knows full well how great Britain was before we joined the European Union, and how things are now.
‘She is well qualified to offer an opinion, although she keeps these opinions to herself.’
Fellow Tory MP Jacob ReesMogg said: ‘It would not be a surprise if the Queen felt this way, given that joining the European Union was a great betrayal of the Commonwealth, and the Commonwealth is close to her heart.
‘The Queen is more in touch with the feelings of the British people than many politicians. She has a much better understanding of the national mood than many in public life.’
Meanwhile, Jean-Claude Juncker was accused of being in denial yesterday after suggesting the best way to fight terror was to keep the borders between EU countries open.
The European Commission president said it was now impossible to prevent terrorists crossing borders on the continent. But he insisted the answer was not a clampdown on free movement but a greater effort at an EU level to spot potential threats.
Mr Rees-Mogg said last night: ‘Perhaps Mr Juncker has had too much sherry in his Christmas pudding. He and others like him in Brussels are so sheltered from reality that they have become muddled in their thinking.’
Comment – Page 16
‘I don’t see why we can’t get out’