{"id":309880,"date":"2025-08-01T18:08:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-01T18:08:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/309880\/"},"modified":"2025-08-01T18:08:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-01T18:08:12","slug":"david-cameron-treated-brexit-referendum-as-some-sort-of-eton-game-admits-tory-mp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/309880\/","title":{"rendered":"David Cameron treated Brexit referendum as \u2018some sort of Eton game\u2019, admits Tory MP"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>David Cameron treated the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thelondoneconomic.com\/tag\/brexit\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Brexit<\/a> referendum as \u201csome sort of Eton game,\u201d a Tory MP and former cabinet minister has admitted.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Former Northern Ireland Secretary Julian Smith has accused the former PM of being \u201cextremely cavalier\u201d in the 2016 referendum.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Smith, who served as a government whip under Theresa May, has now said Cameron shouldn\u2019t have caved in to Eurosceptics and instead found a solution to both sides.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere should have been a proposition which outlined how both answers would be addressed,\u201d he has told the <a href=\"http:\/\/x.com\">BBC<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Talking on the Red Lines podcast, he said: \u201cI joined the Conservative Party because of David Cameron, because he was dynamic\u2026 but looking back on it, it was unforgiveable that this fundamental question was put to the British people when you have a whole range of issues, not least the border between Northern Ireland and Ireland.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But added: \u201cIt was put to the British people as if it was some sort of Eton game.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Following Britain\u2019s vote to leave the EU, Cameron resigned as prime minister.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking in 2016, he defended his decision to originally call the referendum.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI believe and still believe that the fact that we hadn\u2019t had a referendum on this issue for 40 years, despite the fact that the European Union was changing \u2026 was actually beginning to poison British politics \u2013 it was certainly poisoning politics in my own party.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd I think, more broadly, people felt \u2018well, we have been promised referendums and they haven\u2019t been delivered\u2019 and people were beginning to feel very frustrated about this issue.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>David Cameron served as the foreign secretary under Rishi Sunak, giving him a seat in the House of Lords.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"David Cameron treated the Brexit referendum as \u201csome sort of Eton game,\u201d a Tory MP and former cabinet&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":309881,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5226],"tags":[802,748,2000,299,5187,1699,4884,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-309880","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brexit","8":"tag-brexit","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-eu","11":"tag-europe","12":"tag-european","13":"tag-european-union","14":"tag-great-britain","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114954849765057710","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309880","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=309880"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309880\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/309881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=309880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=309880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=309880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}