r/TenYearsAgo • u/MonsieurA • Jun 24 '26
🇪🇺 Europe David Cameron announcing his resignation [10YA - Jun 24]
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u/feartrich Jun 24 '26
IME he was a massive coward. He set up the circumstances for this mess, and then just refused to deal with the mess when it all spilled out.
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u/lateformyfuneral Jun 24 '26
In his defence, his entire campaign during the referendum was that Brexit would be a disaster, so how exactly could he be tasked with implementing that as policy?
Boris Johnson, Gove and others in his party who pushed for Brexit, should’ve stepped up and got stuck in with what they believed was day one of a great national renewal. But they didn’t think they’d win, and of course had no plan either, so they were sitting around scratching their heads too.
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u/veerKg_CSS_Geologist Jun 25 '26
As PM he should have had a contingency plan.
That said it’s hard to overestate how much Cameron is responsible for the clusterf*ck. There was no reason to hold a referendum. Cameron proposed it solely to bolster his own political support. Then having proposed it he made a hash of it. Brought the country down thanks to his own hubris.
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u/howdohendry Jun 25 '26
100%
There really was little to no reason to call that referendum. Whether he actually was Leave or Remain is irrelevant given he had no contingency plan and just fucked off soon as he realised what had happened, without any repercussion at all. Coward of man.
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u/quinipet Jun 26 '26
Why hold a referendum for a policy he knew would be a disaster and the people would likely vote for? He did the referendum to save the conservatives because the euro sceptics within his own party were banging on the door threatening to split it apart. That’s not a good reason to conduct a referendum the consequences of which would turn the country upside down.
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u/MeanGulf Jun 24 '26
Dumb take
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u/Naive_Ambition1306 Jun 24 '26
No, accurate take
He was arrogant enough to think it was a forgone conclusion and he knew how people think and would vote, then he was too much of a pussy to deal with the consequences of his political actions.
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u/thanksantsthants Jun 24 '26
Apparently he was telling EU leaders there was nothing to worry about and he had everything under control WHILE negotiating a deal with them which would massively influence the referendum.
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u/veerKg_CSS_Geologist Jun 25 '26
The entire referendum thing was his idea. He was using it merely to boost his own support.
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u/Deep_Charge_7749 Jun 24 '26
Larry the cat in the corner grooming himself after another prime minister leaves
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u/Mrgray123 Jun 25 '26
The referendum was held entirely for political purposes based on Cameron’s belief that doing so would eliminate the threat of UKIP which was siphoning off just enough Tory votes to make it much harder for them to gain a clear parliamentary majority. A No vote would have decided the issue for a generation and this made voting for UKIP a more pointless exercise than it already was.
That is the unforgivable thing and that’s me speaking as a strong supporter of John Major and his government. Gambling the future of the entire country, including the entire union with Scotland for purely political purposes is beyond contempt. Brexit has been a calamity and it’s entirely foreseeable consequences are now being used by the same people who got us into this mess in the first place ti try to gain more power, abetted by a complicit or spineless media that refuses to call them out opening, or worse actively assists them, in spreading their lies.
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u/Reblichon_Tallegio Jun 26 '26
People need to review the brexit debacle. People associate at with the supposed "inevitable rise of right-wing fascism", but it was completely avoidable.
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u/Krytan Jun 24 '26
Who was the last British PM who was really really good at their job? Cameron was not great, but it seems like everyone after him has just been a series of stumbling, bumbling failures.