David Cameron 'tried to sack' Daily Mail editor over Brexit

David Cameron pressurised the owner of the Daily Mail to remove editor-in-chief Paul Dacre over the paper's pro-Brexit stance, according to a report on BBC's Newsnight.

An anonymous source told the programme the then prime minister approached Lord Jonathan Rothermere after failing to convince Dacre to rein in the fiercely anti-EU rhetoric in the run-up to the June referendum.

Cameron is said to have asked the journalist to "cut him some slack" at a meeting at No 10 in February 2016, after he secured a last-ditch deal to reform Britain's relationship with the EU, says the BBC.

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In response, Dacre, who has been at the helm of the Mail since 1992, said he "would not temper his editorial line on Brexit because he had been a committed Eurosceptic for more than 25 years and believed his readers were too", adds the broadcaster.

Following the fruitless encounter, Cameron is said to have contacted Rothermere to suggest he remove the editor.

Dacre heard about the encounter from a "Westminster source" in March, The Guardian reports, and was apparently "incandescent". Rothermere did not personally tell him about the meeting until after the referendum.

A spokesman for the Conservative peer refused to confirm or deny the story, saying the Mail owner "has been leant on by more than one prime minister to remove Associated Newspapers' editors".

He added: "But as he told Lord Justice Leveson on oath, he does not interfere with the editorial policies of his papers."

In a statement, Dacre said that throughout his 25-year tenure, he had edited the Mail "on behalf of its readers without interference from Jonathan Rothermere or his father".

A spokesman for the former prime minister accepted that Cameron had met privately with both men, but said it was "wrong to suggest that David Cameron believed he could determine who edits the Daily Mail".

He added: "It is a matter of public record that he made the case that it was wrong for newspapers to argue that we give up our membership of the EU."