David Cameron has sparked anger from Buckingham Palace – for admitting he asked the Queen to influence voters in the Scottish independence referendum.
The former prime minister was slated after telling a BBC documentary he asked if the head of state could “raise an eyebrow” in the final days of the campaign.
The Queen was then reported to have told an anonymous well-wisher near Balmoral that Scots should “think very carefully about the future”.
At Holyrood, Nicola Sturgeon said Cameron clearly “panicked”.
She said: “The revelations, if I can call them that, from David Cameron say more about him than about anybody else.
“They demonstrate the panic that was in the hearts of the UK Government in the run-up to the independence referendum five years ago.
“Of course, that is nothing compared to the panic that is in the hearts of the unionist parties now about independence. They are progressively, one by one, making themselves look utterly ridiculous.”
Sturgeon spent Monday night at Balmoral as a guest of the Queen but did not reveal details of conversations.
The royal household was clearly annoyed by Cameron’s admission, with a source telling the BBC yesterday he’d caused “an amount of displeasure”.
The source added the intervention “serves no one’s interests” and “makes it very hard for the relationship to thrive”.
The former PM’s loose lips have got him into trouble with the royals before. He admitted that talking about the Queen ”purring down the line” to him after the No victory in the Scottish referendum had been a “terrible mistake”.
Yesterday, Cameron said: “I don’t want to say anything more about this, I’m sure some people would think, possibly even me, I’ve already said perhaps a little bit too much.”
SNP MP Joanna Cherry said it was “outrageous” Cameron had tried to involve the monarch in the run-up to the 2014 vote. She tweeted: “Make no mistake what happened was not acceptable within a constitutional monarchy. A deliberate set-up. This is a massive scandal.
“Whether or not this manufactured unconstitutional intervention made a difference to the outcome of the indyref is irrelevant. The point is that it was intended to do so.
Outrageous.”
She added: “It was part of a package of measures, including outright lies, which were intended to outweigh the fact the Yes campaign had won the arguments and the campaign. These are the sort of factors against which the Electoral Commission should protect in IndyRef2.”
SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford said: “I think all of us have got to be very careful that we don’t weaponise the Queen in this debate.
“It has to be seen as part of a wider campaign of the Government and there was black arts, there was a propaganda campaign.”
