David Cameron pressed the owner of the Daily Mail to sack his avowedly pro-Brexit editor, Paul Dacre, in the run-up to last year’s EU referendum.
A source indicated that Lord Rothermere, whose family owns the newspaper, told Dacre that the then-prime minister had suggested he sack him, in a story that was first reported by the BBC’s Newsnight programme.
The Mail was one of the most vociferous voices for Britain to leave the EU before the 23 June referendum.
Dacre and Cameron met at the PM’s Downing Street flat on 2 February 2016, the day after Cameron’s planned new deal with the EU to ward off Brexit was announced.
There Cameron asked Dacre to “cut him some slack”, but was rebuffed - although the account has been denied by a spokesman for Cameron.
Early the following month, Dacre was told by a “Westminster source” that Cameron had sought to persuade Rothermere – who inherited French nationality, along with the newspaper, from his father for tax reasons – to sack him, making the editor “incandescent” and all the __more determined to push for Brexit.
It was only in July, after the referendum, that Rothermere personally told his editor of the pressure from Cameron.
A spokesman for Rothermere refused to deny the story. The spokesman said: “Over the years, Lord Rothermere has been leant on by __more than one prime minister to remove Associated Newspapers’ editors but, as he told Lord Justice Leveson on oath, he does not interfere with the editorial policies of his papers.”
Dacre said in a statement: “For 25 years, I have been given the freedom to edit the Mail on behalf of its readers without interference from Jonathan Rothermere or his father. It has been a great joy and privilege.”
A spokesman for Cameron said: “It is wrong to suggest that David Cameron believed he could determine who edits the Daily Mail. It is a matter of public record that he made the case that it was wrong for newspapers to argue that we give up our membership of the EU.
“He made this argument privately to the editor of the Daily Mail, Paul Dacre, and its proprietor, Lord Rothermere.”