Philip wrote: ↑Thu 22 Nov, 2018 17.36
I think we can all agree that David Cameron is a dick though.
At this point, yes. A huge dick. I always championed Cameron from the time he became leader in 2005. He did feel like the breath of fresh air needed, a younger and more dynamic man who hadn't been an MP under any previous Tory administration and the first credible leader the Tories had post-1997 who looked like he could give Tony Blair a run for his money. I was convinced from his first performance at PMQs as leader of the opposition that this was the next Prime Minister (well, after Gordon Brown anyway) and I was right.
Once Blair had gone he blew Gordon Brown out of the water and it was no surprise to see him become Prime Minister in 2010. I was very happy with his performance during the coalition government and was delighted to see a majority Tory government returned in 2015...and then the excrement hit the air conditioning unit as that majority led to the Brexit referendum.
Brexit in Cameron's eyes was never about truly asking the people whether or not they wanted to be in Europe. It was simply a way of silencing the Euro-sceptics in his party. Europe had been tearing the tories apart at least since Maastricht (and arguably long before that). He wanted to be the man that unified the party, and his methodology was simply to pull the rug out from the Euro-sceptics and deny them a platform. It was to be his legacy.
There was of course an assumption that we would never actually vote to leave which is what Cameron gambled on. I do think it's unfair to label that an arrogant assumption of Cameron's, as it was assumed pretty much universally amongst all sides. Just as the Brexit results coverage started, one of the earliest interviews was with Nigel Farage, who was already conceding defeat, predicting that 'remain probably have just squeaked it'. I think the result was as much a shock to him as everyone else.
The EU themselves failed to seriously negotiate for change with Cameron in the belief that we wouldn't vote to leave. I do think in all of this they are being let off rather lightly through their failure to define what their goal is, to define when Europe will be 'done'. Instead they march on and on, admitting more and more members and have only a goal of 'ever closer union'. Whilst I don't think it was at any immediate risk of happening, as things stand I think it is entirely on the cards that a European superstate with no sovereign governments in each country could happen in time...because they won't rule it out.
The idea that member states might seek to draw a line at the level of integration they want is not something the EU has ever considered (I don't think they've even got their heads around the fact that not all member states want the Euro), and over the past 2 years, they appear to have learnt no lessons of their own in that a significant member state has voted to leave. They appear to believe that Brexit is a one off and none of the other member states will seriously consider leaving. There appears to be no prospect of reform to make sure that nobody else feels the need to leave, which does beg the genuine question as to whether Brexit really is a mistake after all.
But back to Cameron. His gamble of course spectacularly failed and he fell on his sword which was the only thing he could do, but falling on his sword is not enough for me. His motivation to gamble on major constitutional change to our country was simply over trying to secure his own personal legacy, not about enabling democracy and the will of the people. Whether Brexit is right or wrong, it was initiated for all the wrong reasons.
In the wake of what he has done, the Tory party has been left a complete shambles with more infighting than the final years of John Major. He has left me and huge swathes of other people politically homeless as we can no longer contemplate voting Tory any more. Given that Labour has been hijacked by momentum who are intent on hammering it to the extreme left (but as I said in a previous post, has a huge Euro-sceptic as their leader which for me is the single reason I fail to understand the support of Corbyn amongst young left wingers), we needed a strong Conservative party more than ever to see out these years of madness for Labour and hope that they return to centrist politics again.
Instead we have this mess. So yeah, you are a dick Cameron. In fact I would rather use a stronger four letter expletive starting with 'C'.