BOMBSHELL: Buckingham Palace refused to have Brexit deal signed at Windsor Castle in bombshell update
The Palace didn’t want the King involved in the Windsor Framework (Image: Getty)
The UK government wanted to sign a post-Brexit deal at Windsor Castle, but Buckingham Palace refused over fears it would put the King in political turmoil, a new book claims. In February 2023, a post-Brexit legal agreement between the UK and the European Union was reached for the movement of goods between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
Politicians allegedly did not want to sign the deal in Brussels, and the European Commission did not want to sign it at No 10. They suggested a third option instead, to name it the Windsor Framework and have it signed at Windsor Castle, to make the deal more appealing to the EU and make it sound “less transactional and more of a settlement”. But a new book claims that while the Palace agreed to the name, they said a signing at Windsor Castle was “going too far”.
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King Charles and Ursula Von Der Leyen at Windsor Castle in 2023 (Image: Getty)
The latest update appears in the revised paperback edition of Power and the Palace by Valentine Low, parts of which have been serialised in The Times.
Mr Low writes: “The palace wanted to do what they could to support stability in Northern Ireland, and it was an area in which they were prepared to take some risk. But they knew they could be walking into a minefield, and wanted reassurance that the government would have their back.”
The author claims that the Palace was concerned that, since it was too early in the King’s reign – Charles ascended the throne in September 2022, and it wasn’t until May of that year that his Coronation took place – his involvement might pose a huge risk and seem “too political”.
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The author adds: “When the Government suggested that perhaps the framework could be signed at Windsor Castle itself, the palace swiftly told them that that was going too far. Near the castle was OK, but at the castle wasn’t. Instead, they agreed that the signing should be at the Fairmont Hotel in Windsor Great Park, some four miles from the castle.”
Rishi Sunak and Ursula Von Der Leyen shake hands during a joint press conference in 2023 (Image: Getty)
The Palace added that any meeting between the King and Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, would have to be separate from the signing of the deal.
Charles and Ms Von Der Leyen met for tea at Windsor Castle on February 27, just after the president gave a joint press conference at the Fairmont Windsor Park hotel with then-Prime Minister Rishi Sunak following the deal’s conclusion.
The Palace said at the time that the King’s audience had been arranged on the advice of the UK Government.
Jacob Rees-Mogg, a Brexit-backing Conservative MP and former Cabinet minister, said the meeting was “constitutionally unwise to involve the King in a matter of immediate political controversy”.
The Windsor framework was then signed on March 24, 2023, by James Cleverly, the then-Foreign Secretary, and Maros Sefcovic, the Commission vice-president, in London.
