The Sun newspaper's editor has denied any wrongdoing after
the UK press regulator ruled that his paper mislead its readers by claiming
that The Queen backed breaking away from the EU in a front-page story.
The Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) said the
popular tabloid's "Queen backs Brexit" headline in March was
"was not supported by the text and was significantly misleading. The
headline contained a serious and unsupported allegation that the Queen had
fundamentally breached her constitutional obligations in the context of a
vitally important national debate."
The editor Tony Gallagher took to the airwaves to defend the
headline and story, which did not breach the Editor's Code of Practice.
"I don't accept we made an error at all. We made a
judgement that the headline was right and backed up by the story,"
Gallagher told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
"We knew more than we put in the public domain, the
sources were so impeccable that we had no choice but to run the story in the
way that we did."
The story claimed the monarch had a "bust-up" with
ex-deputy prime minister Nick Clegg in 2011 at Windsor Castle over Europe and
that she was critical of the EU at a reception for MPs at Buckingham Palace.
Clegg called the story "nonsense" after its
publication while Buckingham Palace complained about the article, stressing
that The Queen was always politically neutral. Gallagher added: "Nick
Clegg had a number of opportunities to deny the story before it went to print
and he didn't do so.
"He only denied the story after it created a furore and
after having some consultation with the palace."
Justice Secretary and Brexit backer Michael Gove was forced
to deny he was a source for the story after it emerged he attended the Windsor
Castle meeting.
"We don't comment on private conversations with the
Queen," a spokesperson for the cabinet minister said at the time.
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