Britain's Royal family have downplayed a press report which claims that the country's head of state Queen Elizabeth II believes the European Union is “heading in the wrong direction”.
A spokesperson for the Queen described the Sun newspaper’s front page "exclusive", under the headline 'Queen backs Brexit', as “spurious” and insisted the Queen remained “politically neutral”.
The newspaper quoted an anonymous source who was present during a 2011 meeting between the Queen and the Britain's then Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg.
The source said: “People who heard their conversation were left in no doubt at all about the Queen’s views on European integration.
“It was really something, and it went on for quite a while. The EU is clearly something Her Majesty feels passionately about.”
The paper also cited another incident when the Queen reportedly told a group of British MPs: “I don’t understand Europe”.
The Queen's press team responded: “The Queen remains politically neutral, as she has for 63 years. We would never comment on spurious, anonymously sourced claims. The referendum will be a matter for the British people.”
Clegg, meanwhile, described the account as “nonsense". “I have absolutely no recollection of it,” he told the newspaper.
The former Liberal MEP said, “I don’t have a photographic memory. But I think I would have remembered something as stark or significant as you have made it out to be.”
He added later on Twitter: "As I told the journalist this is nonsense. I've no recollection of this happening & its not the sort of thing I would forget."
The row over the Queen’s stance on the Brexit referendum comes after the Royals were forced to clarify that the Queen's grandson Prince William was not speaking about the EU when he told diplomats recently that the solutions to the “big questions” at present were “predicated on... working in partnership with others”.
This is an edited version of an article first published by our UK sister website, PoliticsHome