David Cameron bet everything on winning this European Union referendum. He lost. His resignation was inevitable, but the timing was not. Indeed, scores of pro-Brexit Tory MPs had signed a letter asking him to stay as Prime Minister – or, at the very least, not walk out of No.10 on the morning after the vote. Yes, he would not be the best person to lead Brexit talks – but these talks could be several months, perhaps years away. So there was no reason to rush for the exit and plenty reason not to do so. Brexit vote was always going to create uncertainty in the financial markets. Adding political uncertainty, in the form of a Prime Ministerial resignation, was never going to help.
Furthermore, Cameron owes his position to the fact that Michael Howard stayed on for a decent length of time after the 2005 general election. This gave his party time to compose itself, and gave an unexpected candidate time to emerge. This is now far less likely to happen on the timescale that he set out this morning. Labour owes its position, in no small part, to Ed Miliband’s refusal to stay and give party the same time to gather strength, and give candidates the time to build up confidence. Cameron’s last duty to his party ought to have been staying longer, and providing the stability that Howard provided for him. But he felt this referendum was a personal rejection, as well as political one. It is a bad end to an reamarkably good premiership.
It is hard, now, to think that just over a year ago he won an extraordinary general election victory — saving us from Ed Miliband, whose government would have been more damaging for Britain than anything that could come out of Brussels. If it were not for Cameron’s campaign, there would have been no referendum.
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