Cameron: ‘I’ve no regrets in calling the EU referendum’

The ex-Conservative leader said he had honoured his election promise to hold the referendum and was now supportive of Theresa May’s efforts.

Approached by Sky News while getting into his car, he said: ‘I don’t regret calling a referendum. I made a promise in the election to call a referendum and I called the referendum.

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‘Obviously I’m very concerned about what’s happening today but I do support the prime minister in her efforts to try and have a close partnership with the European Union.

‘That’s the right thing to do and she has my support.’

Just before the 2015 general election Cameron told voters they faced a ‘simple and inescapable choice – stability and strong Government with me, or chaos with Ed Miliband’ – but was forced to resign just a year later after the Brexit outcome.

During campaigning on the EU membership issue Cameron said leaving the single market would be ‘needless and reckless’ and that cutting ties with Brussels would ‘hit our service industries hard’.

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Some MPs have been critical of his decision to leave front-line politics, like Labour’s Barry Sheerman, who recently said Cameron and George Osborne ‘ran away from their responsibilities’.

A more colourful intervention came from EastEnders actor Danny Dyer, who called Cameron a ‘twat’ able to relax in France with ‘his trotters up’.

He told Good Evening Britain in June: ‘How comes he can scuttle off? He called all this on.

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‘Where is he? He’s in Europe, in Nice, with his trotters up, yeah, where is the geezer? I think he should be held to account for it.’

Cameron is currently writing his memoirs, and was recently rumoured to be gearing up for a return to politics.

He is the only living prime minister not to have so far supported a People’s Vote.