Book says Queen Elizabeth II privately opposed Brexit

A new royal biography asserts that Queen Elizabeth II privately opposed Brexit and would have voted Remain had a head of state been permitted to take part in the 2016 referendum, according to excerpts published this week. The claim, based on interviews featured in Valentine Low's Power and the Palace, says the late monarch told a senior minister in the spring of 2016, three months before the vote, "We shouldn't leave the EU" and added "It's better to stick with the devil you know."

Low's book, which the Times has serialized ahead of its September publication, draws on nearly 100 interviews with senior politicians, civil servants and palace aides and paints a picture of a monarch who privately valued European cooperation while expressing frustration at its institutions. A palace insider quoted in the serialization said the Queen saw the European Union as part of the postwar settlement that helped prevent another continental conflict. The book also reports that she sometimes reacted to stories about Brussels bureaucracy by telling aides "this is ridiculous" while reading the papers.

The account sits alongside long-standing constitutional conventions. As head of state, the Queen...