Read the original article in Spanish at La Razon

Read ‘Brexit Ignites Westminster’ in Spanish at La Razon

David Cameron’s stance on the EU presents a duality. From the perspective of Brussels he is seen as a cynically self-interested Eurosceptic and a drag on the European Project, in Britain he is seen as the nation’s most prominent Europhile, and leader of the campaign to keep Britain in the EU.

It is largely his attempts to manage these perceptions at home and abroad that has lead him to his current political conundrum, and has granted Britain a referendum on its membership of the European Union.

Cameron has been leader of the Conservative Party for 11 years, making him one of the longest serving in the Party’s history. He has served as Prime Minister for 6 of those years, but only won his first general election in 2015.

Despite his longevity at the very top of British politics, the entire nation continues to puzzle as to what he actually stands for, aside the pursuit and maintenance of position and power.

Margaret Thatcher once said of her approach to politics “If you stand in the middle of the road, you get hit from both sides.” Cameron rose as the “heir to Blair”, whose assessment was quite the opposite: “victory is found dominating the centre ground”.

With the benefit of hindsight, it would seem Thatcher’s assessment has been more accurate, Tony Blair is now equally loathed on the left and right of British politics, and David Cameron is desperately trying to avoid the same fate.

When the Conservative Party left the EPP in 2009, many European politicians reacted in puzzlement as to why Cameron and the Conservative Party would wish to leave the EU’s largest party and form one founded in Euroscepticism. In Britain it was met by Eurosceptics and much of the Conservative Party with dissatisfaction as being a poor compromise for the EU referendum which Cameron had promised, and a commitment to leave the EU. These events are a microcosm of what is happening today.

Having promised a referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU in the run up to the 2010 general election, and again in 2015, Cameron knew he would not be able to hold his government or his party together without finally delivering on his most controversial of electoral promises, as he clings to the duality of being a Eurosceptic politician who wants Britain to remain at the heart of the EU.  

As he was unable to achieve the high aims of reforming the EU that he set out in his Bloomberg speech, he has been forced to campaign for the unreconstructed EU which he has long criticised, and this unprincipled stance has likely doomed him and his fellow travellers to the same political wilderness that Tony Blair now inhabits.

The battle over EU membership has been a “cold war” in Britain for the past 50 years, and certainly a “hot war” in the Conservative Party for the past 30. The last two Conservative governments ended in acrimony over Europe, and David Cameron’s government will not  escape the same fate.

Regardless of the EU referendum result, it is unlikely David Cameron will remain Prime Minister for more than 18 months, and he will spend that time “being hit from both sides”

Ben Harris-Quinney is Chairman at the Bow Group and a contributor at La Razon