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FUTURE SHOCK
Confessions
of David Cameron
Dear
Diary, I made some big mistakes in the EU referendum campaign.
By ANDREW ROBERTS
6/8/16, 5:28 AM CET
An extract from “The
diaries of David Cameron” (2021), published by Penguin, 435 pages,
£35
Saturday June 23,
2018 — No.10 Downing Street
To think it was two
years ago today since the EU referendum!
I never thought I’d
say this, but I almost wish I’d lost by 53.2 percent to 46.8
percent, rather than won by that amount. The avalanche of criticism
I’ve had over the last two years, and the nightmare that the 6.4
percent majority has engendered, has completely taken the sheen off
what until then had been a pretty successful premiership.
In retrospect my
mistake was to have treated my fellow Tories in the same harsh way
that I’d treated the Liberal Democrats during the constitutional
referendum in May 2011 and Scottish nationalists during the
independence referendum of September 2014. When I said it was
“immoral” to vote for Brexit, I didn’t realize that I was
profoundly offending many patriotic Conservatives for whom morality
matters. And when I said that World War III might break out as a
result of Britain leaving the EU, I compounded the sin by insulting
their intelligence, too.
Of course there was
going to be a backlash after all that, but I never guessed that it
was going to blight the rest of my premiership.
I wish I hadn’t
scared the living daylights out of the British people.
Similarly, I made a
mistake — though one I’d only admit to Samantha and this diary —
in skewing the contest so heavily against the Vote Leave camp,
thereby allowing them to complain afterwards that the whole thing was
pretty much rigged. To have spent £9 million on propaganda leaflets
telling people what very nearly half of them didn’t agree with —
and even more didn’t want taxpayers’ cash spent on — might have
been constitutionally correct but now looks rather dodgy. The
Treasury bringing out its anti-Brexit report, unsupported by any
convincing documentation, only days before the official “purdah”
period began also caused resentment.
As for Christine
Lagarde’s anti-Brexit report being published just days before the
vote, when the International Monetary Fund is in part funded by the
British government, that too was constitutionally acceptable but as
it turned out politically stupid. She had already stated that
“credible forecasts” were predicting Brexit would cost Britain 10
percent of GDP, so anything more was sheer overkill. (The fact that
neither the Great Depression nor World War I cost Britain that much
was fortunately missed by our historically-illiterate electorate.)
I now see that with
the entire Establishment behind me, I frankly overdid the aggression,
but boy have I been made to pay for it over the past two years.
David Cameron speaks
at a campaign event for Britain Stronger In Europe| Dylan Martinez/
AFP via Getty Images
Once I’d got the
BBC and ITV, the City, the OECD, the Civil Service, the Guardian, the
leaders of the Labour, Liberal Democrat, SNP and Green parties, the
World Bank, the Institute for Fiscal Studies, Presidents Obama and
Hollande, all the most deracinated CEOs and probably the U.N. and the
Pope all in the anti-Brexit camp, I now realize I ought to have
turned down the rhetoric if I wanted a smooth ride for the rest of my
premiership. Parliamentary mathematics being what it is, I couldn’t
appease all the more recalcitrant Brexiteers in my government
reshuffle, and so rafts of legislation have been voted down in the
Commons ever since.
* * *
I assumed that with
a bearded Marxist-Leninist leader of the opposition who calls Hamas
and Hezbollah his “friends,” I’d get a free ride, however much
I lacerated my party during the referendum campaign. After I gave
Michael [Gove] his old job back as Lord Chancellor and justice
minister, and found a cabinet place for Boris [Johnson], I’d hoped
to be able to buy peace on the backbenches for long enough to hand
over to George [Osborne]. But here we are two years later, with a
still split party, an election looming, and George understandably
checking his watch every time he sees me, while Theresa [May]
positively strums her fingers on the table at every cabinet meeting.
With a parliamentary
majority of 21, I recognize now that it’s too late, a prime
minister simply cannot take his party — the majority of whom
supported Brexit — for granted without expecting two years of
guerrilla actions by his backbenchers. I only wish that, say, two
weeks before the referendum I’d stated that it was perfectly
patriotic — not “immoral” — for my fellow Conservatives to
vote for British independence.
I also ought to have
stamped on the Remain campaign’s dog-whistle attack on Vote Leave
as closet racists. It’s perfectly reasonable for a nation to decide
who comes to live in it, and when I promised that net immigration
would be cut to “tens of thousands” and then it jumped to
one-third of a million, it wasn’t racist for my opponents to say
so.
I attacked Vote
Leave for concentrating on immigration rather than the “far more
important” issue of the economy, but now I see that economies are
naturally cyclical and can recover in a few years, whereas the
demographic makeup of a country isn’t and can’t. If anything,
immigration is more important than the economy.
I wish I hadn’t
scared the living daylights out of the British people, but fought the
campaign on a more positive and uplifting vision of our relationship
with Europe. Of course it’s not my only regret; why on earth did I
ever call The Donald’s policies “stupid, divisive and wrong?”
But how was I to know that he’d win the [Republican] nomination,
let alone the presidency? (The fact that he is indeed stupid,
divisive and wrong doesn’t excuse my risking the Special
Relationship for a soundbite.)
I could have been a
greater prime minister than Harold Macmillan, but the way my
premiership is now petering out in gridlock and discord, I fear I’m
going to be seen as just another Ted Heath, Gordon Brown or John
Major, one of history’s eminently forgettable PMs.
I wish I’d said in
the last three weeks of the EU referendum campaign that my opponents
were honorable people and their cause was not “immoral.” If only
I could turn back time.
Andrew Roberts is
the Lehrman Institute Distinguished Fellow at the New-York Historical
Society
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5
takeaways from Cameron and Farage’s TV Brexit debate
A
strong showing from the prime minister, and UKIP leader has no cause
to be downbeat either.
By ALEX SPENCE AND
TOM MCTAGUE 6/8/16, 12:57 AM CET
LONDON — We’ll
be a bigger, greater Britain by staying in the European Union — and
“little England” if we leave it. That was David Cameron’s
appeal to British TV viewers Tuesday night in his second live
appearance of the EU referendum campaign.
After a surprisingly
antagonistic reception from the audience on Sky News last week, the
prime minister was again met with hard questions from voters in an
hour-long program on ITV. Taking questions for 25 minutes, Cameron
emphasized his central argument: that a Brexit vote will damage the
economy.
United Kingdom
Independence Party leader Nigel Farage, making the case for leaving,
was also grilled by the studio audience, although the two men did not
go head-to-head.
Here are 5 takeaways
from the debate:
1. On balance, a
good night for Remain
Make no mistake, the
Remain campaign will be more than satisfied with the prime minister’s
performance Tuesday.
While Cameron did
not come close to landing a knockout blow, he successfully jabbed
away at the Leave campaign’s weak spots on economic uncertainty
while avoiding taking any major blows himself.
Cameron was also
able to push the patriotic case against Brexit much harder than
before. He said: “If you love this country, you don’t damage the
economy, you don’t isolate it.”
He also raised the
prospect of another Scottish independence vote, saying: “I do worry
about a second Scottish referendum by voting to leave.”
The thought of a
third referendum in three years may be enough for anyone to vote
against Brexit.
But the bigger
picture is that Cameron picked this fight. He was more than happy
going head to head with the UKIP leader. In the end, Number 10
believes Farage is too divisive to win over the Middle England voters
who could swing the result.
2. TV Brexit battle
hots up … in terms of viewing figures at least
Cameron’s
appearance on Sky News last week was livelier — and, frankly, made
for much better television. Julie Etchingham was a light touch as
moderator compared to Sky News’ Faisal Islam, the audience was less
confrontational, and the 25-minute time slot given to each politician
felt slightly rushed.
But while the ITV
broadcast didn’t have the same sizzle, it will have been watched by
many more people. ITV is the U.K.’s second most-watched TV channel
after BBC One. Up against relatively weak competition on other
networks in the 9 p.m. slot, the Cameron-Farage ‘debate’ will
have drawn an audience of several million.
For some of them, it
will have been the first time they had seen the prime minister making
the case for Britain remaining in the EU. Cameron has one other
chance to make his case to a big live TV audience, when he appears in
a Q&A on BBC One on June 19, the Sunday before the vote.
3. Divisive Farage
plays into Remain’s hands?
In facing off
against Farage, Cameron was able to frame the choice as one between
UKIP’s “little England” and the “Great Britain” of
everybody else.
While Farage
performed perfectly admirably, it is hard to avoid the conclusion
that having him make the Brexit case was a bonus for Remain.
Regardless of his popularity among some, the UKIP leader is a
divisive figure in British politics.
Farage was pressed
on a number of occasions to reassure voters that a vote to leave
would not discriminate against ethnic minority Brits.
While he insisted,
clumsily, that Brexit would be “better for black people,” he
appeared unable to shake the stigma that Brexit was at its core
anti-immigrant.
However much the
UKIP leader may appeal to a large proportion of the population,
Number 10 will be confident that it will not be enough to convince
the majority needed for Brexit.
4. UKIP will be
happy — but what about Labour?
If Cameron will be
happy with his performance, Farage has no reason to be downbeat
either.
The UKIP leader and
MEP put in a decent shift for the Brexit campaign, landing a number
of patriotic blows against Brussels condescension.
The longer term
impact of Tuesday’s debate may be a cementing of UKIP’s support,
while Labour was — once again — absent from the debate.
Farage won the
biggest laugh of the night early on with a jibe at his friend
Jean-Claude Juncker. In response to a question about the European
Commission president’s warning that Britain will not get favorable
treatment if it leaves, Farage replied: “We’re British. We’re
better than that… We’re not going to be bullied by anybody, let
alone, charming as he may be, Jean-Claude Juncker.”
He also managed to
turn politics on its head by making the left-wing case against
immigration by insisting there was more to life than economic growth
and that other considerations should be taken into account when
weighing up the benefits of border controls.
“It’s wrong,
wrong, wrong for average decent families in this country to suffer a
10 percent fall in living standards,” Farage said to applause.
Immigration is
Remain’s achilles heel and much as Cameron tried, he has not yet
found an answer to the UKP leader’s challenge. All the prime
minister could say was: “It is a challenge, but I don’t think
it’s a challenge we should meet by damaging our economy.”
He may need a better
line by June 23.
5. This was never
Vote Leave’s night
Vote Leave weren’t
really involved in this ‘debate.’ The officially-designated Leave
campaign wanted one of its figureheads, Boris Johnson or Michael
Gove, to appear and were furious when ITV chose Farage instead.
Worried that the
UKIP leader might alienate floating voters, they accused ITV and
Number 10 of colluding in a “stitch up” designed to favor the
Remain camp.
With that in mind,
Vote Leave would’ve been satisfied if Farage didn’t say anything
to damage the cause. He didn’t. The Leavers will now look to
another program on ITV on Thursday night in which they will
participate. Senior figures from both sides will go head-to-head in
the first conventional debate of the live referendum programs so far.
Johnson is leading a
strong line-up for the Leavers, with the energy minister Andrea
Leadsom and Labour’s Gisela Stuart. On the other side are the SNP
leader Nicola Sturgeon, the Conservative energy secretary Amber Rudd,
and Labour’s Angela Eagle.
The prime minister
will be absent, but it’s likely to be better viewing.
Authors:
Alex Spence and Tom
McTague
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