Queen breaks silence on Brexit

British try to parse meaning of her words

LONDON — For the first time since the 2016 Brexit vote, Queen Elizabeth II has spoken out on the contentious issue of Britain’s upcoming exit from the European Union.

But she did it in a very uncontentious way. This queen doesn’t do politics. That’s the key to her staying power: She rules by not ruling.

And so it was that on Tuesday evening, she referred to Brexit in an oblique way. She told the king and queen of the Netherlands that Britain was looking “toward a new partnership with Europe” and that shared values between Britain and Europe are “our greatest asset.”

Was she expressing a tinge of Remainer regret? Or is she a confident Brexiteer? As ever with Britain’s inscrutable monarch, it was impossible to know. That didn’t stop people from assuming that she was on their side.

“The Queen’s a Leaver,” said one Twitter user.

Elizabeth was speaking at a Buckingham Palace state banquet for Dutch King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima.

“As we look toward a new partnership with Europe, it is our shared values and commitment to each other that are our greatest asset and demonstrate that even through change, our enduring alliance remains strong, and as innovators, traders and internationalists, we look with confidence to the future,” she said.

The queen is famously impartial on political matters. Unlike her more outspoken son Prince Charles, she is careful to keep her own counsel.

Indeed, Buckingham Palace took action when, just a few months before the Brexit vote, the Sun tabloid published an “exclusive bombshell” on its front page that claimed the “Queen Backs Brexit.” The newspaper claimed that Elizabeth had shared her anti-EU views with Nick Clegg, the then-deputy prime minister. Mr. Clegg said the report was “nonsense.”

The palace lodged a complaint to the press watchdog and insisted that the queen was politically neutral. The watchdog ruled that the headline was misleading, but the paper stood by its piece.