“THE British people have voted to
leave the European Union and their will must be respected.” With these words
David Cameron acknowledged an outcome that he doubted would materialise: the
country had voted for Brexit. His lip quivering and his wife at his side, he
proceeded to announce that he would be stepping down: staying on as a caretaker
while his party holds a leadership contest to be concluded by the time of its
conference in October. No candidates have put their names forward, but it is to
be expected that Boris Johnson and Theresa May, and probably others, will throw
their hats into the ring.
The move, so hard to imagine just
hours earlier, had become nigh-on inevitable as, at around 5am, the prime
minister’s defeat in the referendum was confirmed. Mr Cameron has spent the
past months touring the country telling voters that a Brexit would be
disastrous. He would not have wanted to stay on and make the disaster a
reality. And in any case his mostly anti-EU members would not have tolerated
him. He had to go.
The resignation speech, when it
came, was an emotional attempt to remind the world of the best of his six-year
premiership: with nods to his one-nation reforms, an emphasis on the importance
of stability in the coming months and a patriotic peroration about “this great
country”. It was a touching bid to leave office with some scraps of dignity and
honour.
It was ineffectual. With
stockmarkets around Europe crashing, recriminations whizzing through the ether
and the full weight of Britain’s terrible decision to leave the EU looming over
them, his achievements in office seemed, however unfairly, puny.
Most unedifying was his attempt to
imbue the referendum result, easily one of the most ill-conceived and
profoundly damaging political events of Britain’s post-war history, with some
nobility. It had been a great democratic exercise, the prime minister told the
crowds. It had been important to answer such a pressing question. The people
had spoken.
To put it kindly, this was a
fantasy. Mr Cameron took the reckless decision to pledge to hold a vote
(against the better wisdom of George Osborne, the chancellor, who is also bound
to go) back in 2013. He had not needed to. The public was certainly not
clamouring for one. His motive was to placate his cranky backbenchers. His
consideration given to the risks and realities of such a promise was lacking.
His understanding of the “renegotiation” of Britain's EU membership, on which
he rested his strategy, was cursory at best.
The prime minister’s gamble was
underwritten by the assurance that he could handle it, that his powers of
persuasion and credibility (which, to be fair, are considerable) would save the
day. In the months and years after his 2013 speech, he wasted opportunity after
opportunity to roll the pitch for the referendum; to build, over time, a
durable case to stay in the EU. Under-advised and overconfident, he turned the
renegotiation from an asset to a stick with which Brexiteers could beat him.
His referendum campaign, for all its flashes of skill and conviction, was too
little, too late. The whole exercise was a spectacularly foolhardy act of
overreach. The unanticipated outcome will be a Britain poorer, more isolated,
less influential and more divided.
A time will come for reflection on
the good in Mr Cameron’s leadership of the Conservative Party and his
premiership, on his fundamentally correct vision for a one-nation Tory party in
possession of the centre ground. But it will surely be dwarfed by this giant,
nation-changing misstep, one guaranteed to scar the country for decades and
diminish his place in the history books. He leaves office in ignominy.
source The Economist, Friday, June
24, 2016
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