All language subtitles for brexit.a.very.british.civil.war.s01e01.demons.unleashed.1080p.hdtv.h264-deadpool[EZTVx.to]

Ten years ago. The vote to leave the
European Union changed the course

of British history.

Ten years on,

this is the story of the EU referendum,
told by those inside the campaign.

They were putting pressure on me to do
joint events with Cameron. I said, no,

it's not going to convince anybody.

other than we both looked desperate.

It was very difficult because I was a
campaigner, but I was also the Prime

Minister.

I said, this is not Project Fear, this
is Project Apocalypse. This is something

that is far graver than just worrying
people about leaving the European Union.

I got the impression very, very early
that the people that ran though leave,

they didn't really want to win.

There was nothing to do with...

The EU, Britain's place in the world.

It was Game of Thrones. That's what
Boris Johnson was playing, and you could

the Iron Throne right there, about to be
vacated.

I don't think, at that point, he really
believed in it. He believed it was going

to lose.

Watch out, team, watch out. Everybody
says I did this in order to be PM.

I would have become Prime Minister
anyway.

As the country voted in the 2015 general
election, few expected it would lead

to a referendum on whether Britain
should leave the EU.

We gathered in the Prime Minister's home
on election day and there was a real

feeling in the air that we may have lost
this or at least that Labour would be

the largest party and be able to form a
government.

I remember that afternoon I wrote a
speech which would have effectively been

conceding because you've always got to
be ready for every eventuality and I

remember reading it to my team.

David Cameron's mood throughout the
evening became bleaker and bleaker.

We then sat down to watch the BBC exit
poll.

It was a really heart -stopping moment,
just simply not knowing what the result

was going to be.

But here it is, ten o 'clock, and we are
saying the Conservatives are the

largest party.

I remember the exit polls, if it was
yesterday, it was a moment of great joy

me, that we'd worked really hard, I
think we'd run a good government for

years, and we had the chance of serving
again.

Quite remarkable, this exit poll. The
Conservatives on 316.

That's up nine since the last election
in 2010.

On the night of the election, I mean, I
was up in the north of England in my own

constituency, so I wasn't with the rest
of the team, and a huge cheer went up

with the group of people I was with, and
then I immediately phoned David.

We no longer had a coalition, we no
longer had Liberal Democrats, but in

ways it was going to be harder to
govern.

I mean, it was an exciting time, but I
knew we had made a promise to hold a

referendum before the middle of the
Parliament.

Cameron's victory left Labour and the
Liberal Democrats leaderless.

And now it's time for someone else to
take forward the leadership of this

And therefore I announce that I will be
resigning as leader of the Liberal

Democrats.

It was also an eventful night for UKIP
leader Nigel Farage.

Nigel Paul Farage. Who was hoping to be
elected as an MP for the first time.

UKIP 16 ,026.

Craig McKinley.

The Conservative Party candidate, 18
,838.

Election Day 2015 didn't win the seat
down in Fannock, so, yeah, there was a

sense of disappointment about that. When
the count came through, I remember him

walking off stage, we went out the back,
and he was sat in a corner on his own

for about ten minutes.

He was exhausted, he was...

Picked off. He had lost.

So there he was on the cliff top. That's
it, I'm finished.

There hasn't been a single day of my
life since 1994 that has not been

by UKIP. I haven't had a fortnight's
holiday since October 1993.

I intend to take the summer off, enjoy
myself a little bit, not do very much

politics at all.

Nigel can get a bit emotional sometimes,
can't he? So he needed to have his

moment, his tantrum.

and then recalibrate.

I was down for about 24 hours.

I wake up the next morning, and I've not
won a seat.

That's life.

But the government's been elected, and
they've promised us a referendum on

European Union membership.

I then thought, hang on, maybe I
shouldn't resign.

If there is a referendum coming, perhaps
I'd better be a part of it. So I then

unresigned very, very quickly.

David Cameron had won a majority of 12.

His first opportunity to speak to his
newly elected cohort came at the 1922

committee, a meeting of backbench Tory
MPs, dozens of them determined to leave

the EU.

We went into the 1922 committee and
there was a lot of banging of desks and

cheering and a scarcely believing that
the Conservative Party had gone from

being in a coalition government to
actually having an overall majority.

I deliberately sat right up the top of
the room, near where the Prime Minister

David Cameron would be, and I sat facing
so I could see the rest of the room,

see how they were going to react.

I strongly recall that David Cameron
looked like a man who was surprised he'd

won. He did not look elated. He looked
daunted, actually, by what he was now

going to have to do.

There was the dawning realisation that
having a majority did mean that we would

finally get that referendum.

David Cameron's making this good fist of
trying to look pleased that he's still

the Prime Minister.

So we thanked George Osborne, his great
master strategist. And I'm looking

around this packed room of elated
people, and I think, where's George?

I think we expect... stay in office, but
we didn't expect to win outright.

And so there's that moment when you're
exhausted and you've won, and then

politics is, and now?

And I spotted him sitting on the steps
next to the big committee table, so

almost hiding. He wasn't making himself
seen, but he was sitting there with his

arms on his knees and his head down.

You know, this was a despondent -looking
man.

And I thought, yeah.

You didn't expect to have to hold a
referendum because you thought you'd

it away with the Lib Dems. There was a
feeling, I think, that there was a virus

inside the Conservative Party and a lot
of people had come to feel that dealing

with the Europe issue was more important
than the party itself.

Immediately it was clear the big issue
was now going to be the EU referendum

that was going to dominate the coming
period in politics.

Before holding the referendum, David
Cameron promised to renegotiate

relationship with the EU.

David Cameron is attempting something no
EU leader has done before, asking every

other country to agree a set of reforms
that will then be put to a national vote

on whether to remain in or leave the
European Union.

But that summer, the EU faced a more
pressing problem.

The hunt for safety, prosperity or both
is right now causing the biggest

movement of people since World War II.

Hundreds of thousands of refugees, many
fleeing the war in Syria, were arriving

on Europe's shores.

You can't harden your heart for scenes
like this.

These are some of the latest migrants
making the perilous journey across the

Mediterranean.

Many have lost their lives.

For Cameron, the race was on to hold the
referendum before another huge wave of

migrants provided further ammunition for
Eurosceptics.

Nigel was starting to get excited. This
referendum, this is going to be good. I

don't know when they're going to call
it, but it's going to happen. But after

the election, he was exhausted.

So I said, do you want to come on
holiday? Do you want to come fishing?

And he said, yeah, so let's go and do
that. So I said, why don't you come to

Belize?

I went away with one of my advisors,
Aaron Banks, for a few days.

And we talked about what were the
sequencing being, what were the time

And I was convinced that Cameron would
go early.

What amazed me about Nigel was just how
deep his understanding of politics is.

And he realised that the referendum was
more than just Brexit. It would be to do

with the future of the Conservative
Party.

I knew from day one that the
Conservative Party would back Remain,

Conservative establishment would back
Remain, but that some would break away.

He said, we need a separate campaign, we
need to get out ahead of the

Conservatives who will try to avoid
immigration as an issue.

They found it always too difficult, too
awkward to discuss.

So we decided in those weeks following
the election, we'd get going.

So that's how we created this Leave .eu
campaign.

It was at the UKIP conference in the
autumn of that year.

that we launched leave .eu.

The best thing we did was to start
early, because that then forced others

wanted to come out for leave to get
their campaign going as well.

The UKIP leader's brand of politics was
a concern for many Conservatives who

wanted to leave the EU.

It wasn't going to win a referendum
where you need to win over the broad

consensus.

of the population.

Too many people were alienated by the
Farage brand.

Tory Eurosceptics like Jenkin wanted
their own campaign and knew just the man

run it.

Gordon Brown's chief economic advisor is
now republishing a pamphlet he wrote a

few years ago saying what a terrible
idea the euro is.

Fifteen years earlier, Dominic Cummings
had successfully run an operation to

stop Britain joining the euro.

He was the obvious choice to run vote
leave.

I knew he was the guy who could do the
job because he's fearless in his

campaigning. Dominic goes all in on
something.

In some ways, it's a bit like a sort of
SAS general.

He's able to point to the fortification
you want to take.

He's all in, taking that fortification,
come what may, using whatever methods

necessary to do it.

Elliot and Cummings were determined to
launch Vote Leave with a bold claim.

I'm at my desk and Dom walks past and
goes, Oliver, roughly speaking, how much

do we send to the EU every week? So I
basically went on to the official

government's so -called pink book and
found the numbers and simply divided it

52 and so it's roughly speaking about
£350 million a week taken as a gross

figure. Do you want that? And he goes,
yeah, absolutely.

And I said, why do you want it? And he
goes, oh, no reason, don't worry about

it.

Every week, the United Kingdom sends
£350 million of tax -paid money to the

EU.

He did use it deliberately.

In doing that, it helped everyone
discuss what is the balance sheet?

true balance sheet?

That's £20 billion per year.

The reason why that figure drove
everyone crazy is that we were using

figures.

But Cummings' figure did not account for
the rebate, around £80 million, or

EU money spent in the UK.

It was a fantastic video, but I thought,
we can't use 350 million, that's the

gross figure, we've got to use the net
figure, otherwise we'll be completely

lampooned and ridiculed.

From the minute that Vote Leave was
launched, and that was in direct

what Leave .eu had done, I thought,
look, there must be a coming together of

some kind, there must be an
accommodation of some kind.

It makes sense.

It makes sense to have a campaign...

with a lot of the political spectrum
represented.

A meeting between Farage's Leave .eu and
Dominic Cummings' Vote Leave was

organised.

They said that immigration and Nigel
would put middle -class voters off from

voting for Brexit and that he should be
sidelined.

What they didn't realise was actually
both Dominic and I had a very clear idea

about how the referendum campaign could
and should be won.

And it wasn't basically going all in on
immigration and concentrating on the

core vote.

You needed a more specific campaign.

They thought we would actually lose the
referendum on our side because of the

negatives.

So, you know, the 38 % of the population
that were not going to vote leave hated

Farage. Ah, look, there's a minus
approval rating.

What they didn't understand... was on
the positive side of the equation, we

could increase turnout.

It started getting into a row, so Aaron
was not holding back, he was piling in.

Certainly Cummings and Banks had a lot
to say about each other. I told him

straight to his face what I thought of
him, that he was a political spad that

had never done anything with his life,
never amounted to anything, and he was

to tell me anything, really.

And then he responded with, you know, a
four -letter expletive, starting with T.

That's when we knew, pretty much, that
there was no way there was going to be

any joining of the forces.

Meanwhile, the Remain side had their own
problems.

Peter Mandelson was an experienced
former Labour minister and EU

He was organising a cross -party
campaign and wanted to get the Prime

signed up right away.

I met David Cameron at a leaving party
for a number of ten officials and he

up to me and we started talking about
the prospects for the referendum.

And I said, well, we've really got to
start mobilising, we've got to start

organising. He said, hold on. No, no,
no, no, no, no, no.

You know, we haven't even had a
negotiation yet. We have to maintain the

illusion that we might even, if the
negotiation is disappointing, recommend

we leave the European Union.

This gave me, you know, it was a real
problem because, you know, on the one

hand, I had a conservative leader and
prime minister who was trying to sort of

put the brakes on and...

not being entirely enthusiastic. And on
the other hand, Jeremy Corbyn. Jeremy

Corbyn elected as leader of the Labour
Party.

A moment some of his critics hoped
they'd never see. Now the challenge is,

he make the group hug last?

Can he keep Labour together?

In the leadership campaign in 2015,
Jeremy was the only candidate who wasn't

just kind of absolutely remaining
enthusiastic.

A lot of the shadow cabinet were very
anxious about that. They wanted just a

very clear answer, you are supporting
it.

And Jeremy sort of paused and gave his
view of the EU, which is a mixed bag.

I was saying that I see those
advantages, I see the point about

trade within Europe. I do think we have
to be there, but not be.

tied into free market economics, which
will damage the whole of the economic

strategy I wanted to put forward, which
is about a public investment -led

economic revival in Britain.

You could see the minute he said that,
they just cut him off. But we are

supporting him.

I said, yes, we'll campaign for it with
the qualification, and I made this

qualification from the very beginning,
that we weren't going to campaign

with the Conservatives or Liberal
Democrats. It was going to be our

would be a Labour campaign, which would
also be about the need to change and

reform the EU.

Without direct support from either
Corbyn or Cameron, Mandelson and his

-party group decided to press on and
launch.

Using the name Britain Stronger in
Europe.

We were getting very close to launch
date. We didn't have a chair.

And somebody had been talking to Stuart
Rose, who'd been the chairman of Martin

Spencer. Nobody was more surprised than
I to have a phone call one day saying,

Stuart, you know, we've got this
campaign now to remain in Europe and

man to do it.

And I said, you must be joking.

And then I had another phone call an
hour later saying, Stuart, you're just a

man. Then I had another phone call
saying, Stuart, you're just a man. I

saying, no, no, no, no, I'm not the man.

But they lent on me very heavily.

Stuart's speech had been approved and it
had been briefed. And when a speech is

briefed in politics, it means it's
already being written up and the media

expecting the lines to be delivered.

But at the 11th hour, he decided he
didn't like some of those lines.

I'm used to going through a debate to
make sure that we get the best line, we

all understand it, and you believe in
what you're saying.

It's very hard to stand up when someone
gives you a script and suddenly starts

spouting forth on this stuff when half
of you don't believe them. But there was

the word quitter.

I mean, instinctively it said to me,
Stuart, we really shouldn't be calling

people who don't want to stay in Europe
quitters because it's a negative.

I remember sitting there with the speech
and I had my pen out saying, you know,

I'm not saying this, I'm not saying
that, or trying to change words.

Welcome to the launch of Britain is
Stronger in Europe campaign.

It was kind of like taking a world
-class lock forward from a rugby team

trying to make him open the batting for
England in the ashes.

He was a brilliant sportsman, but
playing the wrong sport.

I am not saying, and we are not saying,
that we would not survive from being

without the EU, but I'm asking the very
real question, would we thrive?

I thought the launch went extremely
badly. If I'd been me, I'd have marked

myself three out of ten.

And it really was that bad.

Watching the launch of the Stronger In
campaign, our heads were in our hands.

From that moment on, the campaign was
mocked. And I think that that really

catalyzed the sense that if we don't get
a grip of this, we are going to lose

this.

Craig Oliver was dispatched to meet the
leaders of Stronger In.

When I was shown the polling, what was
clear was on one side we had a third of

people who were going to be out come
what may. We had a third of people on

other side who were going to be in come
what may. And in the middle were a

sceptical group. They didn't
particularly care about European unity,

did care about whether it was going to
impact on their pocket.

I think the thing that really ensured
that the number 10 folks were

with the Remain campaign...

Was our insistence that we understood
economic risk had to be a critical part

the message?

The other thing I was keen to persuade
them of was that we weren't a bunch of

euro nutters, that we did understand
where the British public were, that we

weren't just taking for granted that we
could just sort of conjure up Ode to Joy

and play the music and just march off
into the sunset and win this referendum.

So by the end of that meeting, I felt,
look, we can work together, we can be

part of a team, and that that should be
what we did going forward. We shouldn't

reject them.

In public, though, Cameron insisted he
could still opt for leave if his

negotiation with the EU failed to
deliver special concessions.

But his chance of success was made far
more difficult by the ongoing refugee

crisis, which was dominating nightly
news coverage.

Desperate scramble to get on board as
Hungary opens its main railway station

thousands of migrants who want to get to
Western Europe.

There was a crush to get back from the
tear gas.

We are human, we're trying to be
someplace safe. Why are they hitting us?

They travel onwards, propelled by hope,
most heading for Germany.

I remember talking to David in November
of 2015.

The one thing that I said to him, and
this was more by way of being an advisor

than a friend, was that immigration was
going to be key.

In this negotiation, it was clear that
there'd been a significant win in terms

of Britain's capacity to control free
movement and to control migration.

Then it would be much more difficult for
him to sell any deal. The most obvious

answer. to having some measure of
immigration control from people coming

other EU countries, was simply to have
an emergency break, a cap on numbers, so

that if, for instance, in a given year
it was going over 50 ,000, you could

right, we're pulling the emergency
break, the cap comes into operation, no

can come for this year until the numbers
come down.

When Cameron consulted the EU's most
powerful leader...

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, she
gave him worrying feedback.

I talked to her about it at length, and
she said, this is not negotiable, this

is something the European Union cannot
allow. The freedom of movement is one of

the four freedoms in the European Union,
a freedom of goods and services and

capital and people, and you can't do
that.

The EU's rejection of Cameron's demand.

made it even more important he had the
backing of his high -profile colleagues.

The Christmas holiday provided an
opportunity for him to test the water.

David Cameron invited me and my family
to Chequers, and it was a very relaxed

family gathering. We talked about, you
know, shared friends, food, football,

the things that friends would probably
talk to each other about.

I think, you know, part of the reason we
were there was Dave reminding Michael.

of what it was that he had you know this
is who we are this is this is you know

i'm the prime minister this is checkers
you know this is the environment i

thought you have like a kind of subtle
sort of do you really want to give all

this up sort of a thing we talked about
almost everything apart from the looming

vote on the uh european union but david
on the whole didn't really like talking

uh in detail about politics or policy
when he had downtime It might come up

tangentially, but it wasn't a subject
that he liked to address. And I had my

reasons for not really wanting to
disturb the festive atmosphere by

anything uncomfortable.

David's a very diplomatic human,
actually.

I've always admired that ability.

And he just sort of, you know, we were
sort of, I think we were sort of in

charge of the children or something. The
others had gone away or gone for a walk

or gone for a swim.

I remember sitting on the sofa talking
to Sarah and asking her, you know, I

I'm going to be all right, that Michael
will be, you know, supporting and on my

side. So I just said to him, you know,
you know what, Michael, he's not scared

of Europe. He thinks that Europe takes
lots of liberties, but I think he'll

probably ultimately come down to your
way of thinking.

I thought, you know, I genuinely thought
that would be the case because we were

close.

And we'd done so much together. I
thought we'd be on the same team.

Next in Cameron's sights was Boris
Johnson.

The Mayor of London had also become an
MP at the 2015 election.

He'd never had a Cabinet job.

For David Cameron's point of view in
meetings, he would say, look, we've got

try and bind this guy in. It's the old
Lyndon Johnson thing of wanting somebody

inside the tent pissing out rather than
outside the tent pissing in.

The two men had a decades -old rivalry.

They were both at school together, and
when men of a certain class say school,

what they mean is Eton, and the rivalry
really started there.

The fact that Dave became prime minister
first, even though he was two years

younger, I think really riled Boris. He
thought that it was his

turn to be world king before it was
David Cameron's. I wanted to have just a

personal conversation with Boris without
any aides or other people around, just

sort of the two of us. And we always
talked about our...

joint love of tennis.

I had this wonderful deal where I could
use the American Ambassador's Court next

to Regents Park, and it was a sort of
peaceful place to go for some rest and

recreation.

I love playing tennis, and Dave is
actually very good. He's a left -hander.

Sorry, left -hander. And he's very hard
to beat. I've never beaten him. I think

it must have been Rachel who's beaten
him, I'm proud to say.

And I've beaten Rachel, so that counts
as a sort of partial victory over

Cameron.

First of all, you know, he did thrash
me, but that's fine. And he then said,

look, would you consider joining us on
the Remain campaign? And, you know,

it would be much better if you – I'd
love to have you in the cabinet. You

have a top five job.

And I wasn't sure what the exact
hierarchy was. I knew there was – you

obviously thought about it out of pure
curiosity. What was his job?

Home Secretary, Chancellor,

Home Secretary, Foreign Secretary.

That's four.

And what is the fifth?

The Ministry.

I didn't say which job it was. I said,
be of no doubt, you know, Defence is a

top five job, for instance. I wanted
him, you know, to understand that I

his contribution and that he would be a
major part of the government going

forward.

Being offered a top five job by the
Prime Minister, it's a pretty fantastic

thing.

So I was interested and excited.

David Cameron came back from that tennis
meeting feeling doubly good. One, that

he'd beaten Boris Johnson at tennis, and
two, that he may have a concession that

he would actually join the government.

While David Cameron was fighting to keep
the Conservative Party united,

Vote Leave chief strategist Dominic
Cummings was already working to sabotage

this.

One of the most important things that a
government can deliver is long -term

economic security and stability.

Come on. Come on, guys. If you sit down
now, you can ask me a question rather

than making fools of yourself by just
standing up and protesting.

We got in because Vote Leave formed a
company for us and we pretend to be

businessmen.

It became clear.

very quickly after the event that
certain people, certain MPs, really

like what we had done.

I was absolutely furious.

I'm afraid I want... Even now, I want
politics to be noble. I think politics

important. They just laid into Dom and
said that they had to respect David

Cameron, that he was the prime minister,
he was the leader of the Conservative

Party, and how could we do this?

It was just an appalling neglect.

a fundamental requirement of our
campaign that it should leave the

Party fit to actually carry out the
result of the referendum, whichever way

went. Dom just turned around and said,
you are wrong.

You can either support leaving the EU or
you can support David Cameron. And if

you don't like that, there's the door.

I went to see Dominic Cummings and I
explained, I didn't think that vote

could be some kind of...

political terrorist campaign just
blowing things up dominic was absolutely

furious and he took me outside into the
stalwart and bellowed at me i had been

at work during the day and so i went
over to the offices at about six o

in the evening up i go in the lift up to
the vote leave floor the doors open as

if curtains on a stage and there are two
characters on the stage

Looking at each other, and I'm looking
at them, and they're about this far

apart, one is Bernard Jenkin and the
other is Dom Cummings. He was shouting

me and very, very angry and trying to
intimidate me in

an almost uncontrolled way.

Bernard is looking really quite
disconcerted while...

Tom says something along the lines of,
if you ever say something like that to

again, I'm going to make sure you never
are going to be allowed in this office

again. Do you hear me? I certainly felt
his spittle on my face.

And I was just thinking, this is a very
serious breakdown in a relationship and

a very serious threat to the good
governance of Vote Leave.

From my point of view, from that moment
on...

certainly Dominic should have been
removed.

Because what he showed was that he was
not willing to be held to account. And

that's the recurrent theme of all of the
time I've known him.

It was not just Tory Brexiteers Cummings
was alienating.

My problem with him was that he didn't
seem to think that MPs really had much,

you know, should have much say in
anything. He seemed to not understand or

want to understand that...

you know, what was happening at the
ground level, at the grassroots level,

going to be very, very important.

For Nigel Farage and his team, securing
a Labour MP would be a coup.

The rumblings had started within the
Vote Leave group about the fact that,

know, a lot of them weren't happy with
what Cummings and Elliott were doing at

all. It was really obvious to me that
you needed to get the Labour vote out if

we had any chance of really winning.

And that seemed to be something that
LeaveEU and particularly Aaron and

Andy understood better.

We encouraged Kate to come and join
Leave .eu. We basically said, yeah,

with us. We're going to build a ground
campaign.

In a move unprecedented for a Labour MP,
Kate Hoey agreed to share the stage

with Nigel Farage.

I get up there in the morning, there's a
queue.

I said, what's this for? And they said,
oh, this is for the campaign, the Leave

campaign.

I hear you're doing a rally. I said,
yeah, but not for another five hours.

But, yeah, we're queuing. The traffic
jams we caused, it was extraordinary.

I said, mate.

We hardly advertised this.

We thought we were going to have 200
people.

You've got 1 ,600 people in that room
and they're all here to hear what you've

got to say. Oh.

The blood drained from his face and he
realised this is going to be a big deal.

I'd never met Nigel. It was slightly
concerning.

I mean, you have to remember that in
those days there was a feeling about

that was just...

Pretty horrible. A lot of people had
very, very, very strong views about him.

And there was always this feeling, you
know, oh, if I go on a platform with

Nigel Farage, are people going to start
calling me a racist?

She probably, like many Labour figures,
thought I was Voldemort or something

like that.

I sat down with Keith and I thought,
well, the most important thing, don't

too hard, just be what you are.

And I think within ten minutes,
actually, we hit it off.

The Kettering rally was a very Trumpian
kind of rally.

I didn't know there was going to be
music. I didn't know that I was going to

have to walk up this long alleyway and,
you know, between people cheering.

We are finding that people are coming
out and saying, at last, within the

movement, there is some kind of debate.
We're fed up with the Europhiles who

have been running our party.

It was very moving because there was no
doubt about it that there were lots of

people there who were not Tory voters.

Kate turned to me and said, these are
Labour supporters, these are not

Conservative supporters, these are
people who feel that they've been left

behind, let down by the political class.

Nigel walked in like the Messiah, with
all these people clapping and standing.

And the Tories behind us going, what
the... You know, this is mental. How the

hell is Nigel Price having that
reaction?

This is so important that it's not about
left or right, but it's about right or

wrong. And we know what's right, and we
must win this referendum.

For Nigel, it was the first time he had
been with...

all party members on a stage, and I
think he was quite emotional about it

that day.

It was almost like that group of people
were welcoming me in, albeit slightly

nervously, whereas the snobbier end of
the equation within Vote Leave would

nothing to do with me.

Unhappiness with the leadership of
Dominic Cummings could no longer be

By this time, quite a lot of MPs were
saying, have you got rid of Dominic yet?

There began to be a sort of consensus
that something had to be done if the

campaign was to be saved.

The result was an agreement in general
to draw up a contract which would move

Dominic away from the day -to -day
operations.

Now, it just happened.

that I was already discussing a contract
with him. It was really as to whether

he should be a contractual employee or a
freelance operator.

I said, look, let's have a one -to -one
discussion in private.

I mean, it's just a normal day to begin
with. But then Dom said the board want

me to go across the river to the other
building.

Once we sat down and we were looking at
each other, I said, Dominic, I'm sorry I

brought you here under false pretenses.

I said, it's not working.

You've upset too many people.

I came into the vote leave office and
something felt very different.

Matt Elliott, our chief executive, came
to me with a very long face and said,

have you heard what's happening?

And I said, no, what's going on? And he
said, well, the board had summoned

Dominic and they're going to fire him.

And I said, what, this is going to be
catastrophic. We can't lose our campaign

manager. What are we doing here?

Let's go over there and do something
about it.

By this stage, a number of senior
members had joined the meeting, and I

Dominic a draft contract, which actually
I've got here, and it's a contractor

agreement, which made him a strategic
advisor rather than a campaign director.

I think this document gave him quite a
shock.

And he started texting, clearly texting
back to his colleagues.

Suddenly I'm pulled into the corridor by
our head of operations who go, there's

a coup.

The board are trying to make Dom resign.

Dominic was saying, I'm going to walk
out and I'll take the whole team with

And I, in that moment, I thought, this
whole thing, this whole thing which I've

been working towards for the better part
of 30 years is about to collapse over

some stupid personality clash.

So we decided that we needed to draft a
letter making it very clear that if they

forced Dom out, we would all walk.

Out of the blue, I got a call from
Dominic Cummings.

Dominic had been working with me in the
past at the Bank for Education, and

Dominic was uncharacteristically
agitated.

He was normally ice -cool in most
conversations about politics.

It was clear that there was something
that was up. in the campaign, and

asked me if I could speak to a couple of
people.

I talked to a couple of MPs who were
involved in Vote Leave, and I said,

haven't made up my mind definitively
yet. David hasn't concluded his

negotiations. However, I have to tell
you, if Dominic Cummings is not playing

role in this campaign, then I'm not
going to be playing any sort of

role at all either.

Cummings supporters had saved him.

I saw Dom that evening after the
attempted coup and I asked him how he

and he just looked back at me and said,
we need the cavalry to arrive.

In early February, a draft of Cameron's
EU deal was published.

I'm sitting at my desk in City Hall and
Dave calls me up to say, you know, how's

it going with the decision -making
process on the EU referendum. I said to

look, I'm really sorry, but, you know,
the way things are going, the way my

mind's moving at the moment, I think I'm
going to go with leave.

I said, look, I know you think that my
renegotiation hasn't achieved everything

you think it should, but you've never
backed leaving the EU before. You've

argued for reform, you're a Eurosceptic,
fine, but you've never argued for

leaving. So don't start now.

He did get a bit testy, and he said,
well, if you do that, I will fuck you up

forever.

And I was a bit intimidated by that,
because forever's a long time to be

up by the instruments of government with
all the trained fucker -uppers.

I don't remember saying that, but I was
getting very passionate about it,

because I knew that Boris had a huge
role to play in this.

I went back to see my family later on
that evening. I said, well, look, you

know, I had a bit of a bust -up with
Dave earlier on about the EU thing.

Boris relayed that Cameron had said to
him, if you support Leave, I'll fuck you

up forever.

I thought it was actually surprisingly
weak, in a way.

And I thought it was surprising that
they weren't talking about the issues.

Marina Wheeler, Boris Johnson's wife,
was celebrating her recent appointment

a QC.

She had long

-standing concerns about the EU's
increasing hold over UK law.

David Cameron had come back saying that
he had achieved a great deal by managing

to exempt the UK from ever closer union.

The real problem with Ever Close the
Union was that the Court of Justice used

this as a way of expanding the reach of
EU law and expanding the

whole scope of the project.

And what Cameron had achieved in terms
of agreement wasn't going to touch that.

I've known Marina since I was a small
kid. We've both been small. She's

basically a liberal soul, right? She's
not a...

a foaming xenophobe the absolute
opposite as a lawyer i began to be more

more aware of that process of what the
court was was doing and i did have that

conversation with boris i was very
struck when she said that she too was

inclined to vote lee personally i felt
you know the country will choose you

can't just keep quiet that is abrogating
responsibility

But he was coming under great pressure
to stick with Cameron.

I didn't particularly want to upset the
apple cart. I didn't want to, you know,

be fucked up forever.

Why, you know?

As Boris Johnson wavered, David Cameron
decided he and George Osborne needed to

confront Michael Gove.

David Cameron once described the world
of politics as being divided into two

types of people, team players and
wankers.

And from David's point of view, I've
been a team player in the past. So when

there was a requirement to fall into
line on the EU referendum, I think he

naturally assumed that I would be a team
player then.

I really remember that meeting. And it
wasn't just a meeting. It was a meeting

of friends.

You know, we were people who had lived
together for 10 years.

in terms of our work, in terms of our
holidays. You know, we knew each other's

families. George and I tried to spell
out for him what we thought the

consequences would be if he supported
Leave and if, as a result, Leave gained

lot of traction and won.

I basically pleaded with Michael.

I said, if you go to the Leave campaign,
you are going to give it credibility,

which it doesn't currently have. It's
got a kind of Farage tinge to it, which

puts a lot of respectable people off.

Boris Johnson is going to get FOMO and
feel he has to be put up.

And David Cameron is going to have to
resign if we lose. Don't kid yourself

this government can continue if you've
lost this big referendum.

And everything we have worked for is
going to be shattered.

For me, the fundamental problem with
Britain's membership of the European

is that laws were imposed on us that we
couldn't alter or change.

European Union law for all of the member
states is supreme.

And I said, whatever your particular
concerns about parliamentary

we are a country that needs the economic
support of the EU.

And frankly, you know, what's going to
happen if we leave? Who's going to be

happy? Vladimir Putin's going to be
happy. The Chinese president's going to

happy. And doesn't that tell you what
this really means for the West?

I made it clear to them, I'm sorry.

This is something I deeply believe.

I didn't want this referendum, but now I
have to make a choice.

This was a bombshell that someone who I
was very close to, was a key part of the

team, was wavering and then effectively
saying, I think I'm going to go with

leave.

For me, there was a choice between
staying close to what I believed and,

know, relative moral cowardice and
suppressing that in order to, well...

to safeguard personal relationships.

A week later, Boris Johnson invited Gove
to dinner.

I had some warning because I cooked a
pretty delicious slow roast lamb

and it turned out that the purpose of
the...

was for Boris and Michael to discuss
this impending decision.

I think what we were both thinking was,
well, you know, do we want to go through

the pain of being at variance with the
Prime Minister, seeming to be difficult,

being mutineers, and then probably
losing?

And then, you know, being...

cast out as splitters and, you know,
whatever.

We started off, I think, upstairs, you
know, chatting around, then we went

downstairs to eat dinner.

Marina had cooked lamb.

While we were eating and discussing the
pros and cons of our membership of the

EU, the phone rang. It was Oliver
Letman, who was David Cameron's policy

supremer. Boris put it on speaker.

We were trying to sort out this question
of whether you could somehow assert the

supremacy of UK law over European law.

Although I was trying hard not to show
that I was listening to this, I mean,

obviously I was hearing sort of snippets
of it. And I thought, hmm, I mean, it

sounded pretty unlikely to me.

It became clear during the conversation
that Britain remaining in the European

Union would mean Britain continuing to
be subject to European laws and the

European Court of Justice.

We couldn't change those laws.

We'd have to accept of a closer union
whatever the deal said.

And that, for me, was a clincher.

But Michael Gove did not tell the Prime
Minister he'd made his decision.

I'll be battling for Britain. If we can
get a good deal, I'll take that deal,

but I will not take a deal that doesn't
meet what we need.

The

next

evening, just as Cameron was about to
announce the deal he'd secured from his

counterparts... News broke from London.

In a blow to the Prime Minister, the BBC
has been told that one of his closest

cabinet allies, Michael Gove, will
campaign to leave the EU.

We were at the end of an incredibly long
negotiation and it was a shock that it

was being done at the moment when I was
preparing to think how I would talk to

the country about this.

Now, let me say about Michael Gove.
Michael is one of my oldest and closest

friends. So, of course, I'm disappointed
that we're not going to be on the same

side as we have this vital argument
about our country's future.

Cameron returned home to launch the
referendum.

He called the first Saturday Cabinet
meeting since the Falklands War in 1982.

It felt momentous to be walking into
that Cabinet meeting.

We're all conscious that it was a
meeting that might play

a significant part in history.

There was lots of support for the Prime
Minister's deal.

There are other cabinet members who made
their views plain that they were on the

lead side.

It was worrying to hear different views
on one campaign that the government was

going to be running.

It's difficult enough in politics to all
follow one leader, one plan.

And the concept of us all having
different views and picking sides was

be very different from what we got used
to.

I think the most powerful intervention
came from Michael Gove, where he

emphasised that he just couldn't pass up
the opportunity to secure the UK's

place as an independent, self -governing
democracy.

I just spoke from the heart that this
was the moment that Britain could choose

to be an independent, self -governing
nation.

And for me, that was, above all, the
most important consideration.

Those who want to leave Europe cannot
tell you if British businesses would be

able to access Europe's free trade
single market, or if working people's

are safe, or how much prices would rise.

All they're offering is a risk at a time
of uncertainty.

On Monday, I will go to Parliament and
propose that the British people decide

our future in Europe through an in -out
referendum on Thursday the 23rd of June.

When the Prime Minister actually
announced the date, I thought, holy

is so soon.

We've got so much to do in order to win
that referendum.

But the Leavers had a plan immediately
after that Cabinet, and they came

together very quickly.

I had a Jaguar XF which had parked up
outside the House, and the Ministers

over from Downing Street.

So I put a great escape on and drove
them over to vote Leave.

I remember looking in my rear -view
mirror and thinking how slightly absurd

was to see four members of the Cabinet
crammed into a car heading to vote

It was a very strange moment.

Theresa Villiers, the Northern Ireland
Secretary, had a government car for

personal protection reasons and she
invited me to join her to go to the vote

leave headquarters.

The car journey, it was quite...

Quiet and solemn, I think both Michael
and I were conscious that these next

hours, days, weeks of the referendum
could have a big impact on the future of

our country, potentially and
significantly an impact on us and our

personally.

Michael was perhaps not quite his
ebullient self.

Mr Gove, tell us why you're going to go
to the Prime Minister.

I'm normally a relatively obedient
person.

I was reflecting on what a momentous
decision this was.

Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in
welcoming Pope Lee.

It's me who opened the door and asked
everybody to welcome them to the

And it was a genuine moment of joy that
suddenly the cavalry had now arrived.

I remember watching it with David
Cameron on TV, just like every other

and it was a real shock because these
were, you know, our colleagues, our

friends, in some cases close personal
friends.

I think that was the first moment we
realised, my God, this is going to be

proper kind of civil war inside the
Conservative Party. You know, there's

something, you know, there's something
about a civil war which is, which kind

hits you here.

Just one person was left on the fence.

That morning, I sat on the sofa

opposite the Prime Minister trying to
discuss firing the gun on the campaign,

and I remember a clear moment where
David Cameron had his BlackBerry in

him, and I stopped talking and just let
him read it. And when he'd finished, he

just looked up at me and said, well, it
looks like out.

And he didn't need to say to me that
that was Boris Johnson's email.

Within hours, Johnson seemed to have U
-turned.

I was just getting bombarded with phone
calls from people I know and love

saying, if you vote Leave, you'll be
tendering your resignation from the

race, you'll be joining, you know,
bigots and xenophobes incorporated.

It's like, you know, my spirit thinks
I've gone.

Then I sent another message to Dave, you
know...

recording my growing depression about
the situation.

I wasn't hopeful about the depression
setting in, obviously, but I was hopeful

that he was really having second
thoughts about supporting leave.

My advice to Boris was to go by himself
to our house in Oxfordshire in Tame

and write a case for leave and write a
case for remain and just get it

completely clear in your own mind.

I did, and I read about 1 ,000 words or
so for leave, and I talked to

Marina, and we talked it over.

It contained what I thought were the
fundamental issues about sovereignty,

and it was clear that some of what I'd
been saying had had an impact.

When I sat down to write the second
piece, the best argument I could come up

with was David Cameron's deal wasn't any
good, but, you know...

He was never going to get a good deal,
and we might as well just grin and bear

it.

Boris hates being on his own, so I
texted him to say, you know, what are

doing? And he said, why don't you come
to town and have lunch?

Rachel turns up, and she's brought
lasagna, and we were very kind of her,

thought it was fantastic.

I could sense this pent -up.

anxiety and sort of tension so i said
why don't we go and play tennis so we

balls to each other and i was trying to
work out his thinking i said i don't get

it if you want to be prime minister
which you do why wouldn't you support

cameron who said he's only doing one
term and then you'd be the natural

successor and he was saying but that's
not what i'm thinking

I don't give a fuck about being prime
minister.

I was getting incredibly impatient with
arguments based on what might

happen to me.

They went back inside and Rachel
Johnson, a committed Remainer, read her

brother's two articles.

And I say, well, it's quite obvious.

The column for Remain is very powerful.

and conclusive and the column for leave
is all about how if we were in the eu we

couldn't determine the height of wing
mirrors on our truck and i was like is

that it is that the best you've got
there was nothing in the the article for

romaine except you know doing the right
thing by dave and anyway i remember him

saying to me and being very struck by
this that he'd re -read the column for

romaine and he said and it made me feel
sick At some deep level, it is an

emotional thing.

You know, you either want the country to
be independent or you think that we

should create a federal Europe.

Come on, Nigel!

I said, it's got nothing to do with
Boris. It's about stopping Nigel.

It was a very powerful image.

It's an image, by the way, that if you
used it today, you'd probably get very

little criticism.

David Cameron said, we need a shock
factor.

And I said, look, we've had the shock
factor.

Joe Cox was assassinated.

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