The Sun's editor-in-chief has said he is "in no doubt" that the newspaper's article claiming the Queen backs a UK exit from the EU is accurate.
Tony Gallagher told the BBC he was "completely confident" that the report and its headline reflected her views.
Buckingham Palace complained to the press watchdog on Wednesday about the article, which was headlined "Queen backs Brexit".
The palace has insisted the Queen is "politically neutral".
The Sun quoted anonymous sources, one of whom claimed to have witnessed a "bust-up" between the Queen and pro-EU former Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg in 2011.
Mr Clegg has said he could not remember any such incident and called the story "nonsense" (although, as a Europhile, he would, wouldn't he?).
The UK is due to hold an in/out referendum on its membership of the EU on 23 June.
The Sun 'completely confident' over 'Queen backs Brexit' story
BBC News
10 March 2016
The Sun's editor-in-chief has said he is "in no doubt" that the newspaper's article claiming the Queen backs a UK exit from the EU is accurate.
Tony Gallagher told the BBC he was "completely confident" that the report and its headline reflected her views.
Buckingham Palace complained to the press watchdog on Wednesday about the article, which was headlined "Queen backs Brexit".
The palace has insisted the Queen is "politically neutral".
The Sun quoted anonymous sources, one of whom claimed to have witnessed a "bust-up" between the Queen and pro-EU former Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg in 2011.
Mr Clegg has said he could not remember any such incident and called the story "nonsense".
The UK is due to hold an in/out referendum on its membership of the EU on 23 June.
Mr Gallagher told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that it was "not my fault" if the Sun had published an "inconvenient" story.
He said the paper's duty was to its readers, "not the elite who might be upset at what we've written".
"We knew much more than we published," said Tony Gallagher
Asked if the headline "Queen backs Brexit" had been overwritten, he replied: "Absolutely not."
"We knew much more than we published."
When it was put to him that the Queen's alleged remarks had been made before it was known there would be a referendum, Mr Gallagher said this was "semantics".
Leader of the House of Commons Chris Grayling, who wants Britain to leave the EU, told Today that conversations with the Queen were "always to be kept private".
"She's always been very scrupulous about not being politically partisan," he said.
Gove 'not source'
The Sun's report had said the Queen's exchange with Mr Clegg at a lunch left "no room for doubt about her passionate feelings over Europe".
It said her "reprimand" of Mr Clegg "went on for some time and stunned other guests".
The paper said the Queen also revealed her feelings about Europe during a separate conversation with MPs at Buckingham Palace "a few years ago".
It claimed the Queen told them: "I don't understand Europe" - words an unnamed parliamentary source said she spoke with "venom and emotion".
Prime Minister David Cameron, who is leading the campaign for Britain to stay in the EU, said Justice Secretary Michael Gove, who backs so-called Brexit, had "made clear" that he was not the source of the apparent leak.
"He has no idea where this story came from," the prime minister told the BBC, following a report in the Daily Telegraph that Mr Gove was facing claims he was the source.
Buckingham Palace said the Queen had always been politically neutral
The Buckingham Palace complaint to the Independent Press Standards Organisation (Ipso) was made under clause one of the editors' code of practice, which relates to accuracy and specifies that headlines should be supported by the main text of reports.
Media commentator Steve Hewlett said that since the "principal conversation" reported by the Sun had taken place in 2011 when "the term Brexit hadn't even been invented", Ipso was likely to investigate "whether the Sun had any more [material] than they have published, in order to justify the headline".
He told Today his "best guess" was that such an inquiry would take "two months or slightly longer", pushing completion close to the date of the referendum.
Ipso declined to comment on the inquiry or timing of publication, referring the BBC to its website, which says decisions are published "as soon as is reasonably possible following the conclusion of the complaint".
Change of tone?
In other comments, Mr Gallagher said it was "ridiculous" to suggest the Sun had adopted a deliberate, more critical tone towards the royal family, including the Duke of Cambridge, saying the paper judged stories on their merits.
"It's not just the Sun newspaper that's highlighted the fact that we see Prince William as being work shy," he said.
"Most of the national press have pointed out the fact that he doesn't seem to have a very taxing job in Norfolk and does very few royal duties. It's a matter of record."
The Sun 'completely confident' over 'Queen backs Brexit' story - BBC News
STEPHEN GLOVER: I'd be amazed if the Queen wasn't Eurosceptic - and good for her if she had a pop at Cleggie
By Stephen Glover for the Daily Mail
10 March 2016
Daily Mail
We cannot be sure what the Queen thinks about all manner of things, but we may take it for granted that she is a fierce patriot and British Unionist who has given her life to the service of this country.
It seems to me highly likely that she is a convinced Eurosceptic, though whether she really wants us to pull out of the European Union, as The Sun newspaper has suggested, is unknowable.
How could she not be sceptical about an institution which challenges the British sovereignty which she symbolises, and has eroded so many of the powers of Parliament as well as the independence of British courts?
You don't forget it: I don’t point the finger at Nick Clegg but his mealy-mouthed assertion yesterday that he has ‘no recollection’ of the conversation with the Queen lacks plausibility
She was born in 1926, a year after the British Empire Exhibition in Wembley showed off the manufactured wonders of Great Britain and many of its far-flung colonies.
The notion of a united Europe would have then seemed outlandish to virtually every Briton of every class — though not to the nascent Nazis, including Adolf Hitler, who later promulgated their sinister version of a federal Europe dominated by Germany.
Throughout her long life, the Queen has seen Britain dwindle from a proud and independent great power with the biggest navy in the world to a sort of craven outpost of the EU which must get the say-so of mini-states such as Estonia and Latvia before it puts the paltry terms of David Cameron’s so-called renegotiation to the British people.
The British Empire Exhibition was held at Wembley in 1924 and 1925
How could a person born at such a time and in such a place not hold Eurosceptic views? Indeed, apart from a handful of sandal-wearing Lefties with their heads in the clouds, almost everyone over the age of 75 probably thinks the EU constitutes an undemocratic — and unreformable — racket.
So I have no difficulty in believing that at a lunch at Windsor Castle on April 7, 2011, the Queen had a pop at the arch-Europhile and former EU employee Nick Clegg, then Deputy Prime Minister. I can easily imagine that she bowled him a few bouncers and suggested that the EU is heading in the wrong direction. Good for her, if she did!
Of course, it goes without saying that in the presence of Clegg and three other government ministers, including Michael Gove, she had every right to expect that any remarks would not be leaked. She was not airing views in public and she broke no convention.
I don’t point the finger at Cleggie but his mealy-mouthed assertion yesterday that he has ‘no recollection’ of the conversation lacks plausibility. If Her Majesty the Queen confronts you at a Windsor Castle lunch on a subject close to your heart, you don’t forget it.
As I say, I have no idea whether the Queen is so frustrated by the EU that she may be privately backing Brexit, but a review of the relentless encroachments of the EU on British sovereignty must grieve her heart.
Meeting Cleggie: If Her Majesty the Queen confronts you at a Windsor Castle lunch on a subject close to your heart, you don’t forget it
She will have seen, as we all have, how Britain can no longer control its borders — and will remain powerless to do so under the terms extracted by Mr Cameron. Should a country that isn’t allowed to determine who can and can’t come in be described as sovereign? I hardly think so.
The Queen will have observed how British foreign policy, which used to be conducted by her ministers, is increasingly in the hands of an unaccountable bureaucracy based in Brussels headed by a ‘High Representative’ — currently an Italian lady whom 99 people out of 100 will never have heard of.
The Queen will have seen how Britain can no longer control its borders - and will remain powerless to do so under the terms extracted by David Cameron
We no longer have unfettered bilateral relations with other countries. The EU acts on our behalf, as it did when it succeeded in aggravating Russia’s President Putin by trying to lure Ukraine into the West’s sphere of influence. Mr Cameron obtained nothing in his modest renegotiation which will halt the EU’s foreign policy juggernaut for one second.
Her Majesty is an intelligent and observant woman who will have noted that Parliament has ceded ultimate sovereignty to EU institutions for as long we remain a member of the organisation. The British Government has no authority to overturn a directive from Brussels, however much it dislikes it.
And the Queen will also be aware that the European Court of Human Rights (a non-EU body which EU countries are obliged to respect) and the European Court of Justice can trump the judgment of any British court even though the royal coat of arms will hang proudly within it, proclaiming a bogus supremacy.
Is it surprising that the Queen might marvel at these developments which have taken place since Britain joined the Common Market in 1973, and express the view that the EU is heading in the wrong direction? The wonder is that the insufferably smug Mr Clegg should remain unconcerned by the drip-drip, never-ending loss of sovereignty, but then his heart probably lies in Brussels.
One thing we do know about Her Majesty is that she is devoted to the Commonwealth, of which she is head. She is also sovereign of 15 countries in the global organisation other than the United Kingdom.
The Commonwealth includes the soaring economy of India and rising ex-colonies of Africa, as well as Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Over the past four decades, Britain has largely turned its back on its old friends, preferring to trade with the EU.
Anger: One can understand why Buckingham Palace should be so furious with the suggestion that she is backing Brexit, since such a policy would put her at odds with her Government
Now trade with our continental partners is falling as a proportion of the whole because most of the economies in the European Union are faltering. Establishing stronger links with the Queen’s cherished Commonwealth, which successive British governments have so long sidelined, seems suddenly wise.
So for all these reasons it is easy to understand her possible impatience with the EU. On the other hand, the threat of Scotland seceding from Britain in the event of Brexit — for we also know that she is, above all, a committed Unionist — might affect her view.
That said, would the EU welcome a breakaway Scotland? Spain, for one, would be against it for fear of encouraging its own independent-minded region of Catalonia down the same path.
There are good reasons for believing that Her Majesty may be profoundly suspicious of the EU and all its works
In the end, the Queen is a symbol of Britain, its history and its traditions. And it is these very things which the monolithic European Union, with its homogenising tendencies, either does not value or threatens to eradicate.
We may be certain that not a single interfering bureaucrat in Brussels is aware of the injunction in the book of Common Prayer that our monarch ‘ought not to be subject to any foreign jurisdiction’. The Queen, as head of the Church of England, won’t have forgotten it.
Of course, one can understand why Buckingham Palace should be so furious with the suggestion that she is backing Brexit, since such a policy would put her at odds with her Government and break her lifelong habit of avoiding any hint of divisiveness. Moreover, when these reported comments were made in 2011, Brexit was not on the political agenda.
But there are good reasons for believing that Her Majesty may be profoundly suspicious of the EU and all its works, and that The Sun’s report of what she is supposed to have said to Nick Clegg is true.
In fact, in view of all she has seen and experienced during her long life, it would be a shock if our monarch were anything other than a concerned Eurosceptic who believes that the European Union is heading at breakneck speed in the wrong direction.
Tony Gallagher told the BBC he was "completely confident" that the report and its headline reflected her views.
Buckingham Palace complained to the press watchdog on Wednesday about the article, which was headlined "Queen backs Brexit".
The palace has insisted the Queen is "politically neutral".
The Sun quoted anonymous sources, one of whom claimed to have witnessed a "bust-up" between the Queen and pro-EU former Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg in 2011.
Mr Clegg has said he could not remember any such incident and called the story "nonsense" (although, as a Europhile, he would, wouldn't he?).
The UK is due to hold an in/out referendum on its membership of the EU on 23 June.
The Sun 'completely confident' over 'Queen backs Brexit' story
BBC News
10 March 2016
The Sun's editor-in-chief has said he is "in no doubt" that the newspaper's article claiming the Queen backs a UK exit from the EU is accurate.
Tony Gallagher told the BBC he was "completely confident" that the report and its headline reflected her views.
Buckingham Palace complained to the press watchdog on Wednesday about the article, which was headlined "Queen backs Brexit".
The palace has insisted the Queen is "politically neutral".
The Sun quoted anonymous sources, one of whom claimed to have witnessed a "bust-up" between the Queen and pro-EU former Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg in 2011.
Mr Clegg has said he could not remember any such incident and called the story "nonsense".
The UK is due to hold an in/out referendum on its membership of the EU on 23 June.
Mr Gallagher told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that it was "not my fault" if the Sun had published an "inconvenient" story.
He said the paper's duty was to its readers, "not the elite who might be upset at what we've written".
"We knew much more than we published," said Tony Gallagher
Asked if the headline "Queen backs Brexit" had been overwritten, he replied: "Absolutely not."
"We knew much more than we published."
When it was put to him that the Queen's alleged remarks had been made before it was known there would be a referendum, Mr Gallagher said this was "semantics".
Leader of the House of Commons Chris Grayling, who wants Britain to leave the EU, told Today that conversations with the Queen were "always to be kept private".
"She's always been very scrupulous about not being politically partisan," he said.
Gove 'not source'
The Sun's report had said the Queen's exchange with Mr Clegg at a lunch left "no room for doubt about her passionate feelings over Europe".
It said her "reprimand" of Mr Clegg "went on for some time and stunned other guests".
The paper said the Queen also revealed her feelings about Europe during a separate conversation with MPs at Buckingham Palace "a few years ago".
It claimed the Queen told them: "I don't understand Europe" - words an unnamed parliamentary source said she spoke with "venom and emotion".
Prime Minister David Cameron, who is leading the campaign for Britain to stay in the EU, said Justice Secretary Michael Gove, who backs so-called Brexit, had "made clear" that he was not the source of the apparent leak.
"He has no idea where this story came from," the prime minister told the BBC, following a report in the Daily Telegraph that Mr Gove was facing claims he was the source.
Buckingham Palace said the Queen had always been politically neutral
The Buckingham Palace complaint to the Independent Press Standards Organisation (Ipso) was made under clause one of the editors' code of practice, which relates to accuracy and specifies that headlines should be supported by the main text of reports.
Media commentator Steve Hewlett said that since the "principal conversation" reported by the Sun had taken place in 2011 when "the term Brexit hadn't even been invented", Ipso was likely to investigate "whether the Sun had any more [material] than they have published, in order to justify the headline".
He told Today his "best guess" was that such an inquiry would take "two months or slightly longer", pushing completion close to the date of the referendum.
Ipso declined to comment on the inquiry or timing of publication, referring the BBC to its website, which says decisions are published "as soon as is reasonably possible following the conclusion of the complaint".
Change of tone?
In other comments, Mr Gallagher said it was "ridiculous" to suggest the Sun had adopted a deliberate, more critical tone towards the royal family, including the Duke of Cambridge, saying the paper judged stories on their merits.
"It's not just the Sun newspaper that's highlighted the fact that we see Prince William as being work shy," he said.
"Most of the national press have pointed out the fact that he doesn't seem to have a very taxing job in Norfolk and does very few royal duties. It's a matter of record."
The Sun 'completely confident' over 'Queen backs Brexit' story - BBC News
STEPHEN GLOVER: I'd be amazed if the Queen wasn't Eurosceptic - and good for her if she had a pop at Cleggie
By Stephen Glover for the Daily Mail
10 March 2016
Daily Mail
We cannot be sure what the Queen thinks about all manner of things, but we may take it for granted that she is a fierce patriot and British Unionist who has given her life to the service of this country.
It seems to me highly likely that she is a convinced Eurosceptic, though whether she really wants us to pull out of the European Union, as The Sun newspaper has suggested, is unknowable.
How could she not be sceptical about an institution which challenges the British sovereignty which she symbolises, and has eroded so many of the powers of Parliament as well as the independence of British courts?
You don't forget it: I don’t point the finger at Nick Clegg but his mealy-mouthed assertion yesterday that he has ‘no recollection’ of the conversation with the Queen lacks plausibility
She was born in 1926, a year after the British Empire Exhibition in Wembley showed off the manufactured wonders of Great Britain and many of its far-flung colonies.
The notion of a united Europe would have then seemed outlandish to virtually every Briton of every class — though not to the nascent Nazis, including Adolf Hitler, who later promulgated their sinister version of a federal Europe dominated by Germany.
Throughout her long life, the Queen has seen Britain dwindle from a proud and independent great power with the biggest navy in the world to a sort of craven outpost of the EU which must get the say-so of mini-states such as Estonia and Latvia before it puts the paltry terms of David Cameron’s so-called renegotiation to the British people.
The British Empire Exhibition was held at Wembley in 1924 and 1925
How could a person born at such a time and in such a place not hold Eurosceptic views? Indeed, apart from a handful of sandal-wearing Lefties with their heads in the clouds, almost everyone over the age of 75 probably thinks the EU constitutes an undemocratic — and unreformable — racket.
So I have no difficulty in believing that at a lunch at Windsor Castle on April 7, 2011, the Queen had a pop at the arch-Europhile and former EU employee Nick Clegg, then Deputy Prime Minister. I can easily imagine that she bowled him a few bouncers and suggested that the EU is heading in the wrong direction. Good for her, if she did!
Of course, it goes without saying that in the presence of Clegg and three other government ministers, including Michael Gove, she had every right to expect that any remarks would not be leaked. She was not airing views in public and she broke no convention.
I don’t point the finger at Cleggie but his mealy-mouthed assertion yesterday that he has ‘no recollection’ of the conversation lacks plausibility. If Her Majesty the Queen confronts you at a Windsor Castle lunch on a subject close to your heart, you don’t forget it.
As I say, I have no idea whether the Queen is so frustrated by the EU that she may be privately backing Brexit, but a review of the relentless encroachments of the EU on British sovereignty must grieve her heart.
Meeting Cleggie: If Her Majesty the Queen confronts you at a Windsor Castle lunch on a subject close to your heart, you don’t forget it
She will have seen, as we all have, how Britain can no longer control its borders — and will remain powerless to do so under the terms extracted by Mr Cameron. Should a country that isn’t allowed to determine who can and can’t come in be described as sovereign? I hardly think so.
The Queen will have observed how British foreign policy, which used to be conducted by her ministers, is increasingly in the hands of an unaccountable bureaucracy based in Brussels headed by a ‘High Representative’ — currently an Italian lady whom 99 people out of 100 will never have heard of.
The Queen will have seen how Britain can no longer control its borders - and will remain powerless to do so under the terms extracted by David Cameron
We no longer have unfettered bilateral relations with other countries. The EU acts on our behalf, as it did when it succeeded in aggravating Russia’s President Putin by trying to lure Ukraine into the West’s sphere of influence. Mr Cameron obtained nothing in his modest renegotiation which will halt the EU’s foreign policy juggernaut for one second.
Her Majesty is an intelligent and observant woman who will have noted that Parliament has ceded ultimate sovereignty to EU institutions for as long we remain a member of the organisation. The British Government has no authority to overturn a directive from Brussels, however much it dislikes it.
And the Queen will also be aware that the European Court of Human Rights (a non-EU body which EU countries are obliged to respect) and the European Court of Justice can trump the judgment of any British court even though the royal coat of arms will hang proudly within it, proclaiming a bogus supremacy.
Is it surprising that the Queen might marvel at these developments which have taken place since Britain joined the Common Market in 1973, and express the view that the EU is heading in the wrong direction? The wonder is that the insufferably smug Mr Clegg should remain unconcerned by the drip-drip, never-ending loss of sovereignty, but then his heart probably lies in Brussels.
One thing we do know about Her Majesty is that she is devoted to the Commonwealth, of which she is head. She is also sovereign of 15 countries in the global organisation other than the United Kingdom.
The Commonwealth includes the soaring economy of India and rising ex-colonies of Africa, as well as Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Over the past four decades, Britain has largely turned its back on its old friends, preferring to trade with the EU.
Anger: One can understand why Buckingham Palace should be so furious with the suggestion that she is backing Brexit, since such a policy would put her at odds with her Government
Now trade with our continental partners is falling as a proportion of the whole because most of the economies in the European Union are faltering. Establishing stronger links with the Queen’s cherished Commonwealth, which successive British governments have so long sidelined, seems suddenly wise.
So for all these reasons it is easy to understand her possible impatience with the EU. On the other hand, the threat of Scotland seceding from Britain in the event of Brexit — for we also know that she is, above all, a committed Unionist — might affect her view.
That said, would the EU welcome a breakaway Scotland? Spain, for one, would be against it for fear of encouraging its own independent-minded region of Catalonia down the same path.
There are good reasons for believing that Her Majesty may be profoundly suspicious of the EU and all its works
In the end, the Queen is a symbol of Britain, its history and its traditions. And it is these very things which the monolithic European Union, with its homogenising tendencies, either does not value or threatens to eradicate.
We may be certain that not a single interfering bureaucrat in Brussels is aware of the injunction in the book of Common Prayer that our monarch ‘ought not to be subject to any foreign jurisdiction’. The Queen, as head of the Church of England, won’t have forgotten it.
Of course, one can understand why Buckingham Palace should be so furious with the suggestion that she is backing Brexit, since such a policy would put her at odds with her Government and break her lifelong habit of avoiding any hint of divisiveness. Moreover, when these reported comments were made in 2011, Brexit was not on the political agenda.
But there are good reasons for believing that Her Majesty may be profoundly suspicious of the EU and all its works, and that The Sun’s report of what she is supposed to have said to Nick Clegg is true.
In fact, in view of all she has seen and experienced during her long life, it would be a shock if our monarch were anything other than a concerned Eurosceptic who believes that the European Union is heading at breakneck speed in the wrong direction.
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