The Sun today urged its readers to vote ‘leave’ in the EU referendum on 23 June with a front-page opinion piece.
The UK’s top-selling daily newspaper has strongly backed the leave side of the argument throughout the campaign. Along with the Daily Mail and Daily Express it is among the most staunchly anti-EU of the UK’s national newspapers.
Interviewed by the BBC this morning, Sun associate editor Trevor Kavanagh was asked whether the editorial was the decision of Sun proprietor Rupert Murdoch (who is a US citizen).
He said: “We can only say what we believe in. A lot of our readers readers do believe what we say, as they come to that conclusion themselves.”
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He said that two thirds of Sun readers back leaving the EU, adding: “The decision was made by the editor.”
The Sun editorial warned: “If we stay, Britain will be engulfed in a few short years by this relentlessly expanding German-dominated federal state. For all David Cameron’s witless assurances, our powers and values will be further eroded.”
Speaking at a conference in London in March, Sun editor Tony Gallagher said: “We have written about 55 editorials on Europe since I arrived on the 14th of September and the tone of them is extremely skeptical.”
He said that one of the first things he did when he joined as editor was to commission research which found “the readership was pretty hostile to the European project”. He said: “That has guided some of our thinking editorially.”
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