Queen Elizabeth II was a remainer who told a senior minister “we shouldn’t leave the EU”, according to a new book.
The revelation by former Times royal correspondent Valentine Low, contradicts reports from the run-up to the 2016 referendum, when the Sun ran the headline: “Queen backs Brexit.” The paper was reprimanded by the Independent Press Standards Organisation, which called the headline “significantly misleading”, following a complaint from Buckingham Palace, but was defended in public by then-editor Tony Gallagher, now the editor of the Times.
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Nine years on, Low said ministerial and palace sources, who recounted conversations with the Queen from the time, tell a different story.
In Power and the Palace: the Inside Story of the Monarchy and 10 Downing Street, Low writes: “It is now clear: if the Queen had had a vote, she would have voted Remain.” The author said a senior minister discussed Brexit with the Queen in spring 2016, and was told by the monarch: “It’s better to stick with the devil you know.”
Low writes that a palace insider says: “although she would read stories in the papers about Brussels bureaucracy and say, ‘This is ridiculous,’ on a fundamental level she saw the EU as part of the postwar settlement, marking an era of cooperation after two world wars.”
Former prime minister David Cameron is said to have been aware of her views, but ultimately chose not to air them.