There has been much inconclusive speculation on the Queen’s views on Brexit. In 2016, the Sun asserted that she was in favour (later overruled by Ipso as ‘significantly misleading’). Last year, pro-EU commentators claimed that the blue hat with yellow stars she wore to open Parliament showed coded support for Remain. For now, we are none the wiser. What we do know, however, is that the monarch must be finding things a good deal easier on the way out than on the way in.
Rewind to 1972 and a damp May evening at the Palace of Versailles. The Queen and president Georges Pompidou of France, dressed in their finest, worked their way through a banquet of foie gras, lobster pie, St-Florentin lamb and iced gâteau before rising, on live television, to salute the United Kingdom’s entry to the Common Market. It was the crowning moment of Britain’s accession to the European Economic Community.
Parliament was still angrily debating the issue, and it would be several months before the United Kingdom’s membership formally came into effect. But it was already being treated as a done deal in these high circles. Speaking in French, the Queen proclaimed ‘the beginning of a new Europe, a turning point in its history’. Warm words, but not, it turns out, quite as warm as the hymn of praise her ministers had wanted her to sing.
Here she was in the very city where General de Gaulle had twice declared ‘Non!’ to Britain’s European ambitions. Now, however, his successor was effusive in welcoming the UK. ‘For the first time in more than ten centuries, the peoples of western Europe are definitely committed to follow the path of economic integration and political cooperation,’ declared Pompidou, adding that there could and would be ‘no afterthoughts’.
Forty-four years later, he would be proved wrong.
Comments
Join the debate for just £1 a month
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for £3.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just £1 a monthAlready a subscriber? Log in