Cameron ‘sorry’ but defends referendum
LONDON: The UK prime minister who ordered the 2016 EU referendum and promptly resigned to his home in Oxfordshire when it threw up the vote to leave the group, surfaced on Saturday to apologise for the ensuing deep divisions, but insisted that he was right to hold it.
David Cameron, 52, was Britain’s youngest prime minister in 200 years when he entered 10 Downing Street in 2010 at 43, but left behind a withering legacy in 2016 that promises to unsettle the country for years. Speaking to The Times ahead of the release of his book, For The Record, he insisted he was right to hold the referendum, but claimed he is “truly sorry” at the uncertainty and division it has brought, admitting, “I failed.”
The referendum result, he said, left him “hugely depressed”, adding that he worries “desperately” about the consequences. Some people will never forgive him, he regretted, amid reports that bookshops in areas that voted to remain in the EU would not stock his 752-page tome.
Cameron criticised Prime Minister Boris Johnson for proroguing parliament and expelling 21 Conservative MPS who voted with the opposition last week in the House of Commons.
Johnson’s insistence on leaving the EU without an agreement, he insisted, would be a “bad outcome”. The UK is currently due to leave the EU on October 31, but the deadline is clouded by intense politics in Westminster and legal challenges in courts.