What has the Queen had to say about the Brexit referendum ?
Officially, nothing. But if you have a gigantic pinch of salt handy, here's a story from the (right-wing, pro-Leave)
Telegraph:
EU referendum: Queen asks guests to give her three reasons why Britain should remain in Europe
The Queen has been canvassing opinion on the EU debate by asking dinner companions: "Give me three good reasons why Britain should be part of Europe."
Her Majesty's biographer, Robert Lacey, reported the Queen's comments and suggested they may mean the Queen favours withdrawal from the European Union.
Buckingham Palace would neither confirm nor deny that the Queen had been debating the merits of Brexit in private, but royal sources pointed out that the words attributed to the Queen were "a question not a statement".
However the leading nature of the alleged question adds weight to previous claims that the Queen would like Britain to pull out of the EU.
Last month the press regulator found that the Sun newspaper had been guilty of "significantly misleading" its readers when it printed the headline "Queen backs Brexit" above a story about the Queen complaining about Brussels to Nick Clegg.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/21/queen-asks-guests-to-give-her-3-reasons-why-britain-should-remai/
If you read down, it sounds more like a parlour-game debate than her plotting insurrection.
Is it important that anyone ask her ? Is so, when ?
Not really. She generally doesn't comment on politics, because of her constitutional position - she's supposed to stay above the fray and treat any incoming government impartially. She can advise a prime minister in private, but - although in theory she has some quite fundamental powers of veto - she isn't supposed to make decisions.
The closest she came in recent times was during the Scottish independence referendum when a photo-op was covertly arranged so she could be overheard outside a church service saying people should "think carefully" about their vote. The press ran away with this in much the same way the
Telegraph ran away with that rumour above, and with somewhat more grounds. It may have made a very marginal difference for a few people (even bearing in mind that Scotland is surprisingly pro-Queen, if not necessarily pro-Royal Family, in all the opinion polls - even in the event of that referendum resulting in independence, she'd still have been the sovereign of Scotland. No, I don't understand it either.)
Is her opinion likely to carry weight -- with pols, or the citizenry ?
Hard to say. In a fantasy world of mine, she called a press conference at the gates of Buckingham Palace and declared: "This nonsense has gone quite far enough. I've spent a ruddy lifetime trying to hold this insufferable country and Commonwealth together, weekly meetings with the sort of insufferable stuffed mannikin oiks I'd normally set the corgis on if they were loose in the grounds after dark. First you gave me ulcers over Scotland, now you plebs have just gone orf your rockers. It's. Not. Going. To. Happen. Got that? Now sod orf, the lot of you, I quit. I'm 90, you know. I said good day."
In reality, in the vanishingly unlikely event she gave an opinion, it would be major news, but in the end it probably wouldn't make any difference. There'd be more fuss about her giving an opinion than whatever her opinion was.
Is there some ironic chance that aristocracy could save democracy from mobocracy ?
Nope. But it would be fun to be proved wrong.
= new reply since forum marked as read
