The memoirs of the former British prime minister David Cameron are published this week. He called the referendum and advance extracts have highlighted his denunciation of the dishonesties of Boris Johnson and Michael Gove, who led the campaign to leave the European Union. But Cameron, himself inspired by Tony Blair, spun his own web of deceit as this forensic chapter from Anthony Barnett’s 'The Lure of Greatness' sets out. He argues that the man who set the referendum in motion and directed the Remain campaign was as responsible than anyone for the culture of deceit and spin that swamped Britain in 2016.
What kind of person carries the responsibility for the referendum and its outcome under whose influence all in Britain now live; what were David Cameron’s political qualities and flaws and how could someone like him come to run the government in the first place? No exercise in asking why Brexit happened can avoid the unpleasant task of delving into these questions, as he came to personify the country’s 40-year relationship with the EU and thereby contributed to its rejection. Before he announced the referendum, Cameron informed his then coalition deputy, the Liberal Democrat Nick Clegg of his intention. Clegg challenged him on the risks and recounts how, “I was breezily told that all would be well, of course it would be won.” To call a referendum is one thing, the long-standing heavy weather system of British politics pushed persistently in its direction. The breezy casualness of Cameron is something else. That he could even pretend to take on the storm he would unleash with his light-hearted windiness points to the question that matters. It does not concern the ‘real’ David Cameron, which is a distraction of celebrity individualism; it asks about the source and nature of his political judgment. Where did his calamitously superficial self-assurance come from?
