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Does the Queen back Brexit?
Diplomatic cables from German ambassador contain fresh clues to the monarch’s views
Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.
Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.
The latest insight into the Queen’s thoughts on the bloc comes from newly released diplomatic cables from 1988. Rudiger Freiherr von Wechmar, the German ambassador at the time, wrote that a meeting with Her Majesty had left him in “no doubt that the future of Britain lies in Europe”.
According to the documents - held in the German Foreign Ministry’s political archive and seen by Der Spiegel this week - Wechmar wrote: “With a smirk, she noted that the Brits are still a very insular people, and to most of them the magical number 1992 doesn’t mean very much.”
This reference appears to relate to plans to establish a single market by the end of 1992, says The Times.
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When Wechmar praised a government campaign aimed at educating the public about the benefits of the single market, the Queen is said to have replied: “It’s about time.”
Buckingham Palace has refused to comment.
The Sun row
Ahead of the EU referendum, The Sun got into trouble with the press regulator for its front page headline: “Queen backs Brexit.”
The Independent Press Standards Organisation (Ipso) said the headline was not supported by the main article, which claimed the Queen had criticised the European Union at two private functions, once to Nick Clegg when he was deputy prime minister in 2011 and again at a reception for MPs.
The newspaper’s two sources, described by political editor Tom Newton Dunn as “impeccably placed”, said they “were left in no doubt at all about the Queen’s views on European integration” after hearing the conversations.
At the time, Clegg claimed the report was “nonsense”, while the Palace said: “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.”
Her hints and hats
Some commentators claim to have identified hidden subtexts in the Queen’s speeches, including one to the Sandringham Women’s Institute (WI) in Norfolk earlier this year.
The monarch spoke about the importance of finding “common ground” with people of differing views, in what Reuters said was “a delicately coded message to Britain’s factious political class”.
As the political crisis continued to play out at Westminster, she told WI members: “I for one prefer the tried-and-tested recipes, like speaking well of each other and respecting different points of view, coming together to seek out the common ground, and never losing sight of the bigger picture.”
The Queen’s fashion choices have not escaped analysis either. The Guardian notes that “a blue hat with yellow flowers during a speech in which she read out new laws to prepare the UK for its departure from the EU led some to speculate that Elizabeth may in fact be a closet remainer”.
Even Guy Verhofstadt, the European Parliament’s lead negotiator on Brexit, tweeted: “Clearly the EU still inspires some in the UK #QueensSpeech.”
