The first time I left the confines of Downing Street after the result was to visit Buckingham Palace. The Queen and I discussed what had happened, and I explained why I had decided it was best for the country that I resign.
I had already spoken to Michael Gove that morning. I was on autopilot, calmly conceding defeat and offering my congratulations. He sounded more shocked than anyone. He was, many speculated, likely to become Britain’s next chancellor.
I had also called Nicola Sturgeon. She was gracious but I knew the SNP would try to exploit the result. Scotland (like Northern Ireland) had voted to remain, yet because it was part of the UK, it would leave. We knew that this divergence, and the political pressure it would bring, was one of the dangers of Brexit, and we had warned about it during the campaign. It was essential to act in a way that reduced the risks, and I instructed Oliver Letwin, who was now mapping out an exit plan, to make sure Scotland’s voice was properly heard in the negotiation process.
There were phone calls with the other first and deputy first ministers. I spoke to European leaders and to Obama. To each I said the same thing: ‘I had a strategy to keep Britain in the EU. I executed the strategy. It didn’t work. I’m sorry.’ I told them that we would do what we could to keep Britain and Europe close together, and that my resignation might actually help rather than hinder that. I said I was sad to leave office, but even more sad that Britain would be leaving the EU.
I also received a text from Boris: ‘Dave, I am so sorry to have been out of touch but couldn’t think what to say and now I am absolutely miserable about your decision. You have been a superb PM and leader and the country owes you eternally.’ I replied, ‘Thanks, watched your speech, thanks for the kind words. Congratulations.’ He was now the favourite to become the next prime minister.
That morning the pound slumped to a thirty-one-year low. It was part of the ‘short-term shock’ that Treasury analyses had predicted, and that George and I had spelled out in the lead-up to polling day. I felt no satisfaction in being right.
Britain’s economy was strong, and our institutions were prepared for such volatility. Mark Carney made a statement that morning to calm the markets. His words were backed up by months of contingency planning between the Treasury, the Bank of England and the Financial Conduct Authority. He outlined the various measures that would be taken to keep the markets functioning, and worked closely with George to make sure the banks were adequately capitalised to deal with events. Thanks in part to what they did, by 28 June the FTSE was rising again. The following month it surpassed its 2016 peak.
There was criticism that the government had not planned for the medium- and longer-term fallout of a Leave vote. Where was the contingency plan for if we left? Wasn’t its absence an act of negligence?
Well, we had set out the basic alternatives to remaining: a close partnership with the EU, like Norway; a Canada-style trade deal; or falling back on WTO trade rules. I would argue that subsequent difficulties were due in large part to failing to choose speedily between them. And proper contingencies would depend on our future relationship, which Leave had been careful to avoid specifying. If, for instance, we had begun preparing for a breakdown in relations with the EU – an outcome Leave repeatedly claimed wouldn’t happen – we would have been attacked for fearmongering by precisely those who later attacked us for failing to plan.
The ‘failure to prepare’ narrative has its limits. Unpicking forty years of EU agreements around trade, agriculture, industry, energy, employment rights and many other things would take years, even decades. There was always going to be a limited amount that could be done in the run-up to the vote. And there were always doubts in my mind about whether any future government would really accept contingency work done by one that was foursquare behind staying.
The policy of the government was to remain in a reformed EU. I needed the civil service to be focused on that. Contingency plans would have sapped the effort – and if they leaked, would potentially have been disastrous.
Another risk we warned of during the campaign was how, as the UK was one country against twenty-seven, the EU held the stronger negotiating hand. It wasn’t in its interest to make it easy for us. In fact, it was in its interest to make it hard – to deter others from following our move. And so it came to pass, as Jean-Claude Juncker sent a fierce letter around the Berlaymont on Tuesday, 28 June saying that the EU would only begin negotiations after Britain had triggered Article 50 – the mechanism by which a country withdraws from the EU. This was the start of an approach in which the EU only allowed talks to progress to the next stage once the previous stage had been agreed.
When it came to the Conservative Party leadership contest, I knew my responsibility. A departing prime minister shouldn’t rush out of the door, nor should they cling to the railings. You are there to serve, whether that takes weeks or months, and not to interfere in your successor’s appointment.
Party members would vote on the eventual two candidates after our MPs had whittled down the initial list of contenders through a series of votes. The chairman would need time to make sure the data we held on the membership was up to date and comprehensive. I was willing to continue in the interval, for example offering to attend the upcoming G20 in China if needed. I had said that a new leader should be in place by party conference. That gave us three months.
I knew Theresa May would run. I felt she had a good chance, and could be a good leader. I told Gavin Williamson he should go and help her, and was amazed by the speed with which he took over and ran her campaign. I believed that the toughness I had seen (and been on the receiving end of) would serve her well in Brussels.
However, I knew that the wind was in the sails of the ‘Brexiteers’. That meant – and as I’ve said, this is where the polls pointed – Boris as PM and Michael Gove as chancellor. A couple of years earlier this would have concerned me much less than it did now. Michael had been a passionate reformer and a loyal friend at the heart of my team; Boris had been one of my star players, who I wanted on the pitch.
But to me they seemed to be different people now. Boris had backed something he didn’t believe in. Michael had backed something he did perhaps believe in, but in the process had broken with his friends and supporters, while taking up positions that were completely against his political identity. Both had then behaved appallingly, attacking their own government, turning a blind eye to their side’s unpleasant actions and becoming ambassadors for the expert-trashing, truth-twisting age of populism.
As it awaited its next occupants, Downing Street became an eerie place. Power was fading like a dimming lightbulb. I was still holding lots of meetings, but the number of attendees was dwindling. Civil servants often had somewhere else to be. Political advisers, all of whom would have to leave with me, were going off for interviews or joining leadership campaigns.
Prearranged commitments in my diary kept me busy, but I was beginning to feel like the political equivalent of The Walking Dead. I went up to Cleethorpes for the Armed Forces Day, and felt enormous pride watching the Red Arrows slicing through the sky. In the Downing Street garden we hosted a school performance of Shakespeare, marking four hundred years since his death. It was a medley of plays, including Julius Caesar. ‘Dad, this could be about you,’ Elwen said to me as we listened to those brilliant lines about the most famous political assassination of all. Then there was the hundredth anniversary of the Somme, when I stood in the shadow of the Thiepval Memorial reflecting on the heroism and sacrifice of those dark days. I visited the Farnborough Airshow, where I was surrounded by the cutting-edge kit that was born of our defence review.
Each of these events was a celebration of our country’s bravery, creativity and might. It was as though fate was reminding me that Britain was great, and that we could weather whatever storms came our way. But the scale of the decision the country had just taken never left me. Just five days after the result I was back in B
russels for what would be my final European Council.
I saw Juncker on my own. He was sad, but also effusive. He kept saying that the British Army was Europe’s best. That we had huge power in the world. That he and I were friends, and how sorry he was for me personally. He then said, ‘Of course, I’ve got to say “No big deal for Britain,” but I have to say these things to keep the European Parliament happy. I want to try and make this work.’ Angela Merkel assured me we wouldn’t have got any more in the renegotiation.
The main meeting of the European Council was warm. I gave an explanation as to why I thought we’d lost: ‘The tragedy is this. We’ve had 180,000 net European citizens coming to Britain every year, but if it was 80,000 we wouldn’t be leaving. So you wouldn’t be losing the biggest defence payer, the third-biggest net contributor, the second-biggest economy, and one of your two permanent members of the UN Security Council. Essentially we’re going because we haven’t done enough to fix this immigration problem.’ I finished, ‘I don’t know what you are going to do about it in the future, but whether we are inside the EU or outside the EU, we’ve got to fix this problem, because it is driving apart countries that should be together.’
The next day was my chance to speak to the party faithful (and not so faithful). The Conservative Summer Party was our annual black-tie fundraiser at the Hurlingham Club in west London. But while I was on stage, it felt as if the political spotlight was shifting elsewhere: to the audience, in fact, where the main contenders, Theresa May and Boris Johnson, were enjoying their meals as they waited to battle it out for the top job.
Yet expectations were upended once again the next morning when Michael decided against backing Boris – instead putting himself forward for the leadership. This would inevitably split the vote of Eurosceptic MPs, making things much harder for Boris.
It was all rather strange. Michael had publicly said he never wanted to be leader, and had told me privately in the past that he really meant it. But I could see how it had come about. When you work closely with a prime minister, as Michael had, you can start to think, quite naturally, about the aspects of the job, and which of them you’d do differently. And to be fair to Michael, I think the few days he had had in harness with Boris had made him wonder if Boris as prime minister was such a good idea. But to be more rigorous, how could he possibly have chosen to back Boris without first deciding whether or not he was a suitable candidate for PM?
Back in my office with George, Ed, Kate and Craig, I prepared to watch Boris’s leadership-campaign launch speech. Or at least, we thought it would be his launch speech. But there was another shocking turn of events: rather than going ahead and at least challenging Michael, he declared that he was withdrawing altogether.
George sat there beaming at the TV. ‘We have taken Boris out. Now on to Port Stanley!’ he said, meaning it was Michael’s turn to fall next. He thought it was great news, and that the two of them were both dead in the water. I called Lynton, who said Boris had withdrawn because he knew he wouldn’t get the necessary support any more.
I couldn’t resist texting the former front-runner: ‘You should have stuck with me, mate.’ His reply was very Boris: ‘Blimey, is he [Michael] a bit cracked or something? Great speech last night, everyone watched and thought we’d all gone insane to lose you and people were looking at me as if I was a leper, but you had eleven hard years of party leadership and six superbly as PM, more than I will ever do. Boris.’
I had seen strong qualities in each of the contenders. Boris had the charisma. Theresa had the competence. Michael had the conviction. But so often the winner comes through not because of their own talents but because of their competitors’ failings. And for Michael, one shone through: disloyalty. Disloyalty to me, then disloyalty to Boris.
Since Boris and Michael had pressed the self-destruct button, that left just two women standing: Theresa May and the late entry (supposedly let down by Boris over what job she’d be given in his government) Andrea Leadsom.
I had got to know Andrea a little before she had become an MP because of her passion about improving early-years care for children. She had come to my surgery before she was even a candidate to talk to me about it. I had made her a minister, but was surprised to find her challenging for the leadership so quickly.
While all this rumbled on, I continued with my duties as outgoing prime minister.
I delivered the findings of the seven-year Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq War. I prepared for a trip to Ghana, Kenya, and to Ethiopia in particular, to see how 0.7 per cent had changed people’s life chances there. I also wanted to make good on my promise to visit Somalia, where we had done so much to deliver at least a modicum of stability. I attended my last-ever NATO summit in Warsaw (it was the only time I was to use the new RAF plane – an A330 – which had been converted for royal and ministerial use, and for that brief period it was dubbed ‘Cam Force One’). This was the first time I had seen Obama in person after the referendum result. The speech he made was a genuine tour de force.
In another political upset, the maverick businessman Donald Trump had managed to secure the nomination as the Republican candidate for the US presidency. This was despite (or even perhaps, depressingly, thanks to) his protectionist, xenophobic, misogynistic interventions. He seemed unlikely to beat the Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton: the polls put him at five points behind. But hadn’t our referendum taught us to expect the unexpected? Hadn’t the success of the Brexiteers, as well as the rise of far-left and hard-right parties in Europe, shown us that anti-establishment, divisive, populist politics was the new normal?
Obama’s speech drew on this. He identified Trump as being like Putin: a new style of leader, to whom the old rules didn’t apply. He said the West needed to be clearer about its values, about what we stood for. And he warned us of the slippery slope that leads from criticising, say, gay people or immigrants to the demonising of whole nations, races and religions. Such rhetoric ‘might be popular, but we have to fight it’, he said. I couldn’t have agreed more.
I spoke to my team about having a contingency plan, just in case the leadership contest ended sooner than anticipated. This was fortunate, because yet another contender decided to self-destruct. That weekend Leadsom had said in a Times interview that being a mother gave her ‘a very real stake’ in the future of the country. After a fierce backlash – how dare she use her opponent’s childlessness against her? – she withdrew from the contest. I think the error, which was almost certainly clumsy rather than malicious, had persuaded her that she wasn’t ready.
Theresa May was the last woman standing – and would therefore be crowned party leader and prime minister.
That Monday morning, all systems were go: I thought that the right time to leave would be after PMQs on Wednesday. In the car back from Farnborough, Ed got Theresa on the phone. I congratulated her. After reaching Downing Street I went outside and told the cameras about the developments. As I walked back to the black door I thought, ‘On top of everything else, this bloody door isn’t going to open, is it?’ I hummed a tune to keep myself calm – which was inevitably picked up by all the microphones.
I felt relieved that I would be passing the responsibility to a safe pair of hands. And I felt pride in the fact that Theresa would be Britain’s – and the Conservative Party’s – second female prime minister. As I would taunt Corbyn at PMQs two days later, ‘Pretty soon it’s going to be 2–0.’
But I also felt pangs of sadness that it was all ending. We had thought we had three years; then we had three months. Now we had just three days.
Nancy was on a school trip in France. I called her and explained that she would have to come back early, as the date for my leaving office was set, and an appointment fixed with Her Majesty. She said she wanted to stay. ‘Can’t you tell the Queen to do it another day?’ she asked.
Liz was also in France, at a wedding. She rushed back, and found Sam and me having
a drink on the terrace that evening. Sam was very busy with the fashion business she was about to launch. She had been working hard for the past year, learning to sew and to cut patterns, and filling our dining room with dressmakers’ dummies and fabrics. I would come up to the flat to find one friend or another standing on the kitchen table in Sam’s latest creation as she fiddled with the hem. Life was moving on. There would be a new business, a new prime minister, a new path for the country.
For my final visit as prime minister I decided to travel to Reach Academy in Feltham, west London. The school was based in a former Jobcentre under the Heathrow flightpath, and had been set up just four years before, but was already providing its pupils with an outstanding education (a year later, its first cohort achieved the sixteenth-best GCSE results in England, with 98 per cent achieving passes in English and maths).
When we came to government in 2010, there hadn’t been a single one of these Free Schools. I announced another thirty-one, which would take the total to five hundred. Some were even sending more children to Oxbridge than their independent equivalents. Political gravity had been defied. The best schools could exist in the poorest areas, and they could get the best out of their pupils, whatever their background. You didn’t need private schooling or selection.
Afterwards, I wandered around the offices of No. 10 as the special advisers packed their things into boxes. Any achievements attributed to me – changing our party, communicating our message, winning elections, turning our economy around – belonged also to my closest team. By serving me, they had served Britain. I felt keenly how much these people had given up. All those holidays cut short, invitations turned down, late nights sitting in the blue glow of their computer screens in No. 10. I wanted to make sure everyone had options and plans – and that what they had achieved was acknowledged.
The UK honours system recognises ‘people who have made achievements in public life and committed themselves to serving and helping Britain’. Any member of the public can nominate anyone for an honour. The civil service can make nominations, and frequently does. It’s then up to the independent Honours Committee to decide who is worthy of an MBE, OBE or CBE. An outgoing prime minister can also nominate people. Past PMs had done so – Wilson, Thatcher and Major. I thought it was perfectly acceptable to take the opportunity. I knew I’d get flak for it, but then, that was exactly what my team had done for me over the years. Sports stars, actors, musicians and business people had reached the top of their game, made a huge contribution, and been recognised for it. Political advisers in Downing Street had reached the top of their game and made a huge contribution – so why shouldn’t they be recognised? I don’t regret it.
For the Record Page 87