THE QUEEN is seemingly livid with David Cameron, according to sources at Buckingham Palace.
The former prime minister was rebuked in unusually strong language from the Royal Household after he appeared to suggest he had conscripted the monarch to Better Together.
In a startling admission in an interview to publicise his new memoirs, Cameron suggests the monarch intervened in the final weeks of Scotland’s independence referendum campaign after he turned to the royals for help following the publication of a Sunday Times poll predicting a Yes victory.
Not long after, the Queen made a rare intervention in politics, telling a well-wisher outside Crathie Kirk near her Balmoral estate that she hoped Scotland would “think very carefully about the future”.
READ MORE: David Cameron reveals he asked the Queen for indyref help
The monarch is supposed to remain above the political fray.
At the time, Buckingham Palace played down the remarks saying the Queen “maintains her constitutional impartiality”.
Yesterday, the PA news agency reported that Cameron’s remarks had led to “an amount of displeasure” in Buckingham Palace.
A source quoted by the BBC said “it serves no-one’s interests” for conversations between the prime minister and the Queen to be made public and “it makes it very hard for the relationship to thrive”.
The uncharacteristically robust slap-down suggest the Royals are apoplectic at the Tory’s indiscretion.
The comments come at a tense time for the Queen after Boris Johnson roped her into his Brexit plotting. Her suspension of Parliament, at Number 10’s behest, was ruled unlawful by the Scottish Courts, and is currently being judged in the Supreme Court.
READ MORE: Sturgeon: Cameron's indyref2 claims show UK Government's panic
The former prime minister acknowledged he had said “perhaps a little bit too much” about his dealings with the monarch.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I never asked for anything improper to be said or done.”
He added: “I don’t want to say anything more about this, I’m sure some people would think – possibly even me – that I have already said perhaps a little bit too much.”
At First Minister’s Questions in Holyrood, Nicola Sturgeon was asked whether she had concerns over the Queen’s involvement.
She responded: “I think the revelations – if I can call them that – from David Cameron today say more about him than they do about anybody else, and really demonstrate the panic that was in the heart of the UK Government in the run-up to the independence referendum five years ago.”
In an interview to be shown on the BBC, Cameron explained how he had weaponised the Queen: “I remember conversations I had with my private secretary and he had with the Queen’s private secretary and I had with the Queen’s private secretary, not asking for anything that would be in any way improper or unconstitutional, but just a raising of the eyebrow, even, you know, a quarter of an inch, we thought would make a difference.”
READ MORE: Alex Salmond hits back at David Cameron over indyref remarks
Former first minister Alex Salmond said he doubted Cameron’s claims that the Queen’s independence referendum intervention was in response to his “raised eyebrow” request.
He told The National “begging a constitutional monarch to make a political intervention is not only totally improper” but an indication of “how desperate” Cameron was in the final stages of the referendum campaign.
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