The row over whether Queen Elizabeth II was in favour of Brexit has been reignited by the BBC’s political editor, Laura Kuenssberg, after she said a source told her before the referendum that the monarch made comments supportive of leaving the EU.
Story in Sun newspaper
Ms. Kuenssberg recalled what she had been told by a contact nine months after TheSun sparked controversy by publishing a headline, “Queen backs Brexit”, in March.
The front page caused one of the biggest rows of the EU referendum campaign and prompted a successful complaint to the press regulator, Ipso, by Buckingham Palace, which said it was misleading.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Ms. Kuenssberg revealed she had been told something similar but decided not to report it because it came from a single source. The BBC generally requires a story to be double-sourced before it can run.
“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 Queen told people at a private lunch that she thinks that we should leave the EU’,” she said.
“Apparently at this lunch, she said: ‘I don’t see why we can’t just get out. What’s the problem?’ “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 stood by its story, saying it had two sources for the claim that the Queen had “let rip” at the then Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg about Europe at a lunch at Windsor Castle. Mr. Clegg said he could not recall the conversation and dismissed The Sun ’s account as “nonsense”. — The Guardian
