David Cameron's favorite film is “The Man Who Killed Liberty Valance”, but if his political career were a film, it would not be a Western but a horror one: “The Man Who Killed the United Kingdom's Relationship with Europe ”. The former prime minister, now the protagonist of a surprising return to the forefront of British politics, has inevitably gone down in history as the father of Brexit, for calling the referendum that led to the country's departure from the European Union.
That is not, in any case, the epitaph that Cameron would have wanted for a tomb from which he has now risen, like Lazarus, although in a secondary role. In his dreams he would have been remembered as a young, modern, pragmatic and progressive leader, who moderated the Conservative Party, removed its toxicity and promoted legislation to normalize civil unions between homosexuals. But we already know that history is written in crooked lines, and the financial crisis and Brexit got in the way.
Conciliatory by nature, the former premier called two referendums, first in Scotland (to try to put an end to independence demands north of the border) and then in Brexit (to quell the permanent rebellion of the Eurosceptic wing of his Party). With the sovereignty consultation there was quite a scare (even the queen had to intervene), but unionism eventually emerged victorious. But with the departure of Europe he made a miscalculation and ran a dull campaign to remain in the EU, making it easier for Britain to shoot itself in the foot of the one who is still convalescing.
Despite his privileged origins (he went to Eton and Oxford, is a descendant of William IV and a distant relative of Queen Elizabeth), he campaigned for prime minister as a supporter of strong social investment and a friend of young people with integration problems, reaching to allow themselves to be photographed wearing a tracksuit and a hood in gestures of solidarity. He has never lacked money but he has always wanted more, and after leaving Downing Street he was involved in a scandal for lobbying Government ministers to grant funds to a financial company to which he had been linked and which had paid him. ten million euros for his services.
The 2008 crisis did him a favor, by discrediting Gordon Brown's Labor Administration and facilitating his arrival in Government two years later at the head of a coalition with Nick Clegg's liberals. But it also took its toll on him because it prompted him to change course economically, to be much less progressive than he had promised and to become the apostle of austerity and cuts that still persist, have pushed the seams of the country's social fabric to the limit. and destroyed public services.
David Cameron led the Conservative Party for eleven years, longer than anyone after Winston Churchill, Margaret Thatcher and Sir Alec Baldwin, and left his mark, even if it was not the one he would have liked. After seven years in the shadows, “the man who brought about Brexit” has returned in a sequel to the film, to help Rishi Sunak and save what he can from the foreseeable sinking of the conservative ship.
