NOT AMUSED
Queen’s outrage after being dragged in to EU exit storm
BUCKINGHAM Palace was engulfed in a row last night over claims that the Queen privately backed Britain’s exit from the EU.
The Monarch was reported to have clashed with ex- Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg over the UK’s European future during lunch at Windsor Castle in 2011.
Tory Justice Secretary Michael Gove, a leading campaigner for a “leave” vote in the EU referendum, was yesterday under suspicion as the source of the claim. Royal aides flatly denied the report and made an offi cial complaint against the newspaper that ran the story.
Mr Clegg, who was deputy prime minister when the Windsor meeting took place, dismissed the anecdote as “nonsense”. Yet the suggestion that the Queen may be a secret supporter of the push to quit the
EU electrified the Leave campaign ahead of the referendum on June 23.
Tory MP Jacob Rees- Mogg insisted he believed Her Majesty backed a Brexit because her “deepest commitment is the United Kingdom and to the Commonwealth”.
He said: “One of the great things about the Queen is that we all believe that she is on our side regardless of which side we are on and that’s actually quite the right position for a constitutional monarch. I like to think she’s a Brexiter.”
The row erupted yesterday when The Sun reported an account of the 2011 lunch at Windsor Castle.
A source told the newspaper: “People were left in no doubt about her views on Europe.”
The Queen was said to have rebuked pro- EU fanatic Mr Clegg, telling him that the EU was heading in the wrong direction.
The source was quoted as saying: “It was really something. The EU is clearly something Her Majesty feels passionately about. People who heard their conversation were left in no doubt at all about the Queen’s views on European integration.”
It emerged yesterday that Cabinet minister Mr Gove was at the meeting. Also there were his then Cabinet colleague Cheryl Gillan and Lib Dem peer Lord McNally. Westminster insiders raised suspicions about Mr Gove’s involvement, pointing out he met media tycoon Rupert Murdoch – whose News Corp empire owns The Sun – twice in the past week.
“Gove had lunch with Murdoch the other day,” said one senior source.
Mr Gove was a journalist at the Murdoch- owned Times newspaper and attended the tycoon’s wedding to Jerry Hall last weekend.
A spokeswoman for Mr Gove said: “We don’t comment on private conversations with the Queen.”
The Queen was also said to have told a group of parliamentarians at a Buckingham Palace reception: “I don’t understand Europe.”
A parliamentary source was quoted as saying: “It was said with quite some venom and emotion. I’ll never forget it.”
Buckingham Palace yesterday made a complaint about the accuracy of the report to newspaper watchdog IPSO.
A Palace spokesman said: “We can confirm that we have this morning written to the chairman of the Independent Press Standards Organisation to register a complaint about the front page story in today’s Sun.
“The complaint relates to Clause 1 of the Editors’ Code of Practice.” The clause states: “The press must take care not to publish inaccurate, misleading or distorted information or images, including headlines not supported by the text.”
The Palace aide added: “The Queen remains politically neutral, as she has for 63 years. We will not comment on spurious, anonymously- sourced claims. The referendum is a matter for the British people to decide.”
Mr Clegg said: “I have no recollection of this whatsoever, but I think it’s wrong that people who want to take us out of the European Union now try and drag the Queen, for their own purposes, into this European referendum debate.
“The Sun story is nonsense. It is not true. I have certainly, absolutely no recollection of a conversation like that – which I suspect I would have remembered if it had taken place.”
Labour MP Wes Streeting wrote to Cabinet Secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood to demand an investigation into whether the Queen’s supposed comments were made during a Privy Council meeting.
He wrote: “If anyone at the meet-
ing were found to have disclosed what was discussed it would be an extremely serious breach of the rules. If none of those present are implicated, I urge you to establish which ‘ impeccably placed’ individuals were involved in making such allegations to a national newspaper.”
Privy Council meetings are often in the late afternoon and do not usually involve a meal.
A court circular records the April meeting happened at 12.40pm, leaving open the possibility – which has not been confi rmed – that the Queen may have invited her guests to lunch before or after a formal session. Constitutional expert Professor Vernon Bognador said it was “absurd” to suggest the Queen would break from her tradition of political impartiality after more than 60 years on the throne.
A senior Downing Street source declined to comment on the report, saying only that the Palace and Mr Clegg had already made statements.
The Sun said: “The Sun stands by its story, which was based upon two impeccable sources and presented in a robust, accessible fashion. The Sun will defend this complaint vigorously.”