Face of Nation : David Cameron has accused Boris Johnson and other Leave campaigners of “lying” to the public to win the 2016 Brexit referendum. The Conservative former prime minister, 52, was responsible for calling the 2016 referendum that saw just over half of voters back the UK’s exit from the European Union.
In extracts of his memoir serialised in The Sunday Times, he said Mr Johnson did not believe in Brexit but had joined the Leave campaign to further his political career.
He criticised Mr Johnson’s infamous Vote Leave campaign bus, which had claimed that Brexit would mean an extra £350m a week for the NHS. Mr Cameron said: “Boris rode the bus round the country, he left the truth at home.”
The now-prime minister wanted to become the “darling of the party” and “didn’t want to risk allowing someone else with a high profile – Michael Gove in particular – to win that crown”, according to Mr Cameron. He added that Mr Johnson had backed Leave, despite being “certain the Brexit side would lose” and despite being promised the post of defence secretary.
Mr Cameron said his old Eton schoolmate had also privately claimed there could be a “fresh negotiation followed by a second referendum”. Mr Johnson is now opposed to another vote on Brexit.
“The conclusion I am left with is that he risked an outcome he didn’t believe in because it would help his political career,” Mr Cameron said. The former prime minister also ripped into Mr Gove, describing the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster as a “foam-flecked Faragist”.
He said Mr Gove, who was once a close friend, had “backed something he did perhaps believe in, but in the process had broken with his friends… while taking up positions that were completely against his political identity”.
Mr Cameron added: “One quality shone through: disloyalty. Disloyalty to me and, later, disloyalty to Boris.” He blamed Mr Gove for the devaluing of experts, saying his claim that the public were tired of experts had made him “an ambassador for the truth-twisting age of populism”.
Mr Johnson’s adviser Dominic Cummings also comes in for criticism, with Mr Cameron describing the Leave campaign chief and former UKIP leader Nigel Farage as being part of a “cauldron of toxicity” and having “something of the night about them”.
