Talking Politics

David and Helen take a step back to unpick the tortuous history of how we got to the Brexit referendum in the first place. Does the justification Cameron offers in his new memoirs stack up? What was he trying to achieve? And why did we end up with an in/out vote when the political risks were so great? A conversation linked to David's review of Cameron's book in the current 40th anniversary issue of the LRB. https://www.lrb.co.ukTalking Points: Why did Cameron call for an in/out referendum?He wanted to reconfigure Britain’s relationship with the EU, not abolish it.Let’s take the story back to 2004-2005 and the new constitutional treaty.The key question was consent.In Britain, there was a push for a referendum. Although Blair was initially opposed, he made a u-turn. But the Dutch and the French voted the treaty down before it could happen.Then came the Lisbon Treaty. Brown decided that this was different than the constitutional treaty and he ratified it without a referendum.Th