Cameron tried to have paper editor sacked over EU stance: BBC

Former British Prime Minister David Cameron attempted to have the editor of a national newspaper that strongly supported Brexit sacked during last year’s European Union referendum campaign, the BBC has reported.

Cameron, who led the campaign for Britain to stay in the EU, met the owner of the Daily Mail tabloid, the country’s second-biggest selling paper with the largest online audience, to urge him to either rein in or sack its editor Paul Dacre, according to the report by BBC TV.

A spokesman for Cameron told the BBC he denied the report and had merely sought to persuade them of his pro-EU case.
The Mail, which Dacre has edited for 25 years, has long been a fierce critic of the EU and, like the majority of Britain’s national newspapers, was an outspoken supporter of the campaign to leave the bloc.

Britons voted by 52-48 per cent for Brexit on June 23 last year, prompting Cameron to resign the next day.

According to the BBC report, Cameron tried to persuade Dacre to “cut him some slack” in a private meeting last February on the day European Council President Donald Tusk unveiled a deal the bloc had agreed with Britain which Cameron hoped would secure victory in the referendum.