Buckingham Palace has taken the highly unusual step of complaining to the press regulator Ipso about a frontpage story in the Sun on Wednesday that claimed the Queen had voiced strong Eurosceptic views and wanted Britain to quit the EU.



The story, headlined “Queen backs Brexit”, said the monarch vented her anger towards Brussels at the former deputy prime minister Nick Clegg, during a lunch at Windsor Castle in 2011. The former Lib Dem leader dismissed the report as “nonsense”.

A Buckingham Palace spokesman said : “We can confirm that we have this morning written to the chairman of the Independent Press Standards Organisation to register a complaint about the frontpage story in today’s Sun newspaper.”

The claims about the Queen’s views provoked speculation at Westminster about who could have been the source of the story, with many pointing the finger at Michael Gove, the pro-Brexit justice secretary who also attended the lunch in 2011. Others present included the Lib Dem peer Lord McNally and the Conservative MP Cheryl Gillan.

However, a spokesman for Gove insisted he had no idea who could have been the source for the leak. “We don’t comment on private conversations with the Queen,” he added.

Other attendees at the lunch said they had no memory of any discussion about the EU taking place.

David Cameron saw Gove on Wednesday morning as part of his regular preparation for prime minister’s questions but a spokesman for No 10 refused to say whether the pair had discussed the Sun story.

Buckingham Palace said its complaint to Ipso “relates to clause one of the editors’ code of practice”.

Clause one of the Ipso editors’ code of practice covers accuracy. In particular the clause outlaws “inaccurate, misleading or distorted information” including headlines not supported by the text of the story itself. In an increasingly online world, a headline is often read by many more people than read the story.



A Sun spokesperson said: “The Sun stands by its story, which was based upon two impeccable sources and presented in a robust, accessible fashion. The Sun will defend this complaint vigorously.”

Palace officials are understood to be particularly incensed with the fact that at the time, even if any conversation took place about Europe, the idea of a referendum was some way in the future and the term Brexit had not even been coined.

The article, described by the paper as an “exclusive bombshell”, was written by the Sun’s political editor, Tom Newton Dunn, who quoted “a senior political source” and “a highly reliable source”.

Buckingham Palace said in a statement: “The Queen remains politically neutral, as she has for 63 years … The referendum will be a matter for the British people.”

It is understood to be the first time that the Palace has complained to Ipso, which was founded in September 2014.

Sun executives were understood to be confident of their sources and even “relaxed” about the subsequent furore. One insider described the palace’s criticism of a headline focusing on Brexit as “mere semantics”. Executives even insisted that the “hilarious overreaction” by the palace had merely guaranteed space for the story on the next day’s front pages.

Newton Dunn approached both Sally Osman, the corporate communications chief for the palace, and Clegg the day before publication. Sun executives described the subsequent response as “non-denial denials”.

The case raises interesting questions about the relationship between the media and the royal family and the press’s relatively new system of self-regulation. Sun executives are said to be pleased to “break the convention” that the Queen has no views and are not unduly concerned about the sanctions likely to be introduced by Ipso.

The palace did not complain last July when the Sun printed a family photo of the Queen as a child apparently doing a Nazi salute on its front page.

However, the royal household made several complaints to Ipso’s predecessor, the Press Complaints Commission (PCC). In 1999 the palace made a formal complaint to the PCC about the publication of a topless picture of Sophie Rhys-Jones – now the Countess of Wessex – and in 2001 complained over tapes of her in the Sun. In 2008 the Palace complained about a story in the London Evening Standard about the Duke of Edinburgh’s cancer scare and in 2001 about pictures of Prince William in OK! magazine.

The Sun’s ‘Queen backs Brexit’ front page. Photograph: The Sun

The complaint about the Brexit story, if investigated and upheld by Ipso, could lead to a frontpage apology. Clause one of the editors’ code of practice states that a “significant inaccuracy, misleading statement or distortion must be corrected, promptly and with due prominence, and – where appropriate – an apology published”.

In December Ipso told the Sun to print a frontpage correction over a claim that Labour’s leader, Jeremy Corbyn, was willing to join the privy council because his party stood to benefit financially.

















