Cameron’s chance to salvage an iota of respect from the wreckage of his career – an open letter

Dear Mr Cameron,

How has your week been?

I am writing with a suggestion that might not quite rescue you from the dustbin of history to which you have now been consigned. But it might just help people remember you slightly more fondly in years to come.

I am alarmed by what I am seeing happen to this country in the wake of the Brexit decision.

Because of my age and the social profile of my friendship circles, my Facebook newsfeed has been enthusiastically, even zealously, pro-Remain both before and after the vote. People were shocked by the outcome and some are convinced that whatever happens now will be a total catastrophe for this country. They are also disgusted that a majority of people could have voted for this apparently calamitous outcome. They have a hard time understanding the Leave mentality as anything other than an anti-immigration and anti-establishment primal scream. And that view is reinforced by stories circulating of hideous racist, xenophobic abuse being widely suffered by immigrants around the country. There is an atmosphere of total despondency, which is also being fed and nurtured by various websites, newspaper columnists and the prism of social media.

In my view, all of this is the natural extension of the way the campaigns were fought. Remain dug a deeper and deeper trench, based on the premise that leaving would be an economic disaster. Leave.EU played on fears of immigration. Vote Leave used less hateful but no less unsound arguments around the cost of membership. Even for well-educated people, who recognised the campaigns as propaganda and based their vote on much wider issues, the campaigns have had an impact. If you tell people enough times that leaving will be a disaster, you should not be surprised if they are a bit worried when the nation votes to leave. Similarly, if Leave.EU targets its entire campaign at people who are anti-immigration, it’s not surprising that the Remainers have come to believe that the Leave vote is a depressing sign of the nation’s wish to pull up the drawbridge.

But perhaps the greatest travesty of all is the concerted effort made by the campaigns to avoid talking about how a withdrawal from the EU might actually work.

I understand why you didn’t want to talk about it. You were shaping an argument entirely based on fear of the unknown. This would have been undermined by a rational explanation of what leaving the EU might really mean, how it might be achieved, and what kind of relationship we might have with our EU partners in the future. You wanted people to feel that Brexit would be a seismic event, not a slow, gradual, controlled process unfolding over a number of years. You were hoping to be the man who delivered an enormous national sigh of relief. But you failed, and now half the country is scared witless.

The Leave campaign had more to gain by showing people that leaving the EU would not necessarily end in disaster. So why didn’t they do so? I’m not sure. But my best guess is that they knew the likely path to exit was not going to push all the right buttons with their target voters. There are good reasons to think that our exit from the EU will have to be facilitated (at least in the short-term) by joining the European Economic Area. As I understand it, that is probably the only serious option that can be achieved within the two-year negotiation limit. But of course, joining the EEA involves remaining subscribed to the core principles of the EU, including free movement of people. The anti-immigrant brigade would never have voted for it, so it was better not to let them know. It’s ironic that our likely new relationship with the EU is going to keep some of the Remainers a lot happier than some of the Leavers.

Of course, I understand that it is politically difficult for anyone to step forward and say, “Hey, you know all that stuff we told you when we wanted your vote? Well, to be honest, it was a bit over the top”. But as you well know, your political career has now ended in total embarrassment, so you don’t need to worry about making things worse. There is no possibility of anyone thinking any less of you than they already do. And this gives you an opportunity to make things better.

Please step forward and try to soothe the concerns of the Remainers. Tell them that, whilst it might not be the outcome they wanted, it doesn’t necessarily have to be an unmitigated disaster. Explain how your campaign’s economic forecasts were massaged to give the worst possible impression. Help heal the rift between Leavers and Remainers by conceding that some people voted Leave not out of hatred or a desire for isolation, but simply because (rightly or wrongly) they believe Britain can make better progress outside of the EU. Explain that such progress will be impossible if we turn our back on the EU. The widely-used divorce analogy is totally unhelpful. The goal now is not achieving a divorce settlement, but forging a better, more functional relationship with the EU, cooperating wherever possible but being able to take different paths when it is in our interests, or theirs, to do so.

You also need to address those who voted Leave for all the wrong reasons. They need to understand that in the modern world, in a developed country like ours, we cannot expect rates of migration to be much lower than they currently are, regardless of whether or not we have an open border with the EU. They need to understand the crucial importance of retaining access to the Single Market, and the fact that this will almost certainly mean that freedom of movement is not going to stop any time soon. They need to understand that they have been lied to and their fears have been deliberately and deceitfully stoked. A certain portion of these voters also need reminding that this country is built on immigration, and we are proud that so many people from the rest of the world choose to live, work and raise families on our green and rainy island. Our country is the richer for it, and we must not let a spiteful minority make immigrants feel threatened. It is our duty to make the UK the best home it can be for everyone who lives here.

So there it is, Mr Cameron. Your chance to correct the lies. To perhaps give a glimmer of hope to a lot of scared and grieving people. To start to unite a population left viciously divided by this referendum, by demystifying the process of leaving and offering a positive vision of our eventual relationship with the EU.

The responsibility for making sure Brexit does not turn into a disaster now falls on other shoulders. But only you can sustain the political damage of admitting how badly the country has been misled over the last few months, because your fate is already sealed. And maybe, just maybe, when people look back at this time, they will remember your words. Maybe they will forget that we only had this referendum because you were more interested in your career than your country.

Yours sincerely,

William Laws