All language subtitles for Brexit A Very British Civil War S01E02 Out of Control 1080p iP WEB-DL AAC2 0 H 264-RAWR[EZTVx.to]_track3_[eng]

CAMERA SHUTTERS CLICK

-
- President Obama
has arrived in the UK

for a three-day visit,
during which he'll make the case

for the UK staying
in the European Union.

Leave campaigners have said
he should butt out of the debate.

We were in a very tough fight,

erm, and a tough fight in which

we felt the economy
was the most important issue.

Obama was very keen
Britain should stay in the EU.

He thought it made us stronger,
safer and better off,

to coin a phrase.

He said, you know,
"Well, what can I do to help?"

He'd noticed that a lot of
the arguments for Brexit

were just crazy. I mean, false.
I mean, they were lies.

I said, "Well, one argument they're
making is that there's going to be

"this easy trade deal with the
United States if we tear up our

"trade deals with Europe", and he
says, "That's obviously nonsense."

Obama said, you know, "You guys
would be at the back of the queue",

kind of as a joke, in a way,

and everybody kind of chuckled.

He said, "Do you think it would be
helpful if I said that?"

And I said, "Yeah, I think
it will be helpful

"because it's going to puncture
this Brexit myth."

CAMERA SHUTTERS CLICK

Some of the folks on the other side
have been ascribing

to the United States
certain actions we'll take if

the UK does leave the EU.

And we were all in the campaign
gathered around the television set,

dozens of us, all, you know,

in silent anticipation.

I figured you might want to
hear it from the President

of the United States what I think
the United States is going to do,

and UK is going to be
in the back of the queue.

A huge cheer went up
when Obama said this

and we thought, "Wow, we've done it!
He's clinched it.

"He's made the argument
in one fell swoop."

I was in the back of a black cab
and I was following on Twitter

what was the reaction
to Obama's comments.

And then the cab driver
pulled his window back

and he was listening to
the same story on the radio.

"Are you hearing this, guv'nor?
Back of the queue?

"That's not very friendly, is it?
I bet you won't be at the back of

"the queue when they need another
ally for the next bloody war!"

British people hate being told
what to do by

people who don't have
any skin in the game.

It was a reminder of how
the Westminster bubble

was just talking to itself.

-
- Ten years ago.
God, amazing.

It both seems unimaginably distant
and like yesterday.

The vote to leave the European Union

changed the course
of British history.

Ten years on, this is the story
of how it happened,

told by those inside the campaigns.

Loved that bus. I loved that bus.
It was the bus of truth, by the way.

We had sort of entered
the post-truth age

of political campaigns.

Johnson, you're a liar!

From about two weeks before

I said, "I think this thing
is going to go down."

Let's make June the 23rd, 2016,

Independence Day. Let's do it.

With just four months to go
until the referendum,

the British media had one obsession.

Would Boris Johnson campaign
to stay in or leave the EU?

I was at our house in Colebrooke Row

and, as the day went by,

more and more press

were gathering outside.

So what starts as a sort of low hum

becomes much, much louder.

Good afternoon.

I arrive back at our house
in Islington

to find the whole place
absolutely swarming, erm,

with representatives of...

You know, TV journalists...
Everybody's there.

I remember it being
incredibly stressful

just not being able to control
this press presence.

- Boris!
- Boris, just over the shoulder!

I felt under huge pressure -

emotional, psychological pressure -

to come up with a decision.

He walked over to me, he stared me
in the face, and he said,

"What do you think I should do?",
and I looked at him and I said,

"What do I think YOU should do?!"

I said,
"You've got to be effing joking."

I said, you know, "I'm just the guy
that smokes fags outside

"and does your briefing, right?

"The decision is yours to make
and no-one else's."

And there was a bit of harrumphing

and he looked at me
and he just went,

"You're right. Let's do it."

In order to psych myself up for
the ordeal of talking to the media,

erm, which I don't want to do

but they're all outside the house
and they won't go away, erm...

...I do some press ups in the hope of
getting some, you know,

endorphins or something
so that I can kind of, you know...

We were heading to the door
and I said, "Hang on,

"have you let Dave know
the decision?", and he was like,

"Oh, Christ, Cameron!
Let me text him, let me text him."

Text Dave a slightly emollient text,

you know,
trying to sort of cheer him up,

saying, you know, "I'm sure
we'll lose anyway, but there you go.

"This is what I have to do."

It was such a Boris phrase, saying,

"I know that Brexit will be crushed
like the toad under the harrow

"but I feel I have to support it."

Hi, there. Hi, there.

The last thing I wanted
was to go against

David Cameron or the Government,

but after a great deal of heartache

I don't think there's
anything else I can do.

I will be advocating Vote Leave,
or whatever the team is called.

I thought it was a brave thing to do

and rather idealistic in a way.

None of us knew
what was going to happen

and it was a leap in the dark.

Anyone would think
he likes the attention.

Love him or loathe him,
you can't ignore him.

Boris Johnson has just taken
a huge political jump

that could change this campaign.

Look, it was a big blow. Erm...

He had the... You know,
a high favourability rating.

He was listened to on this issue.

It was going to make a massive
difference in the campaign.

The next day,
Cameron prepared to launch

the referendum campaign
in Parliament,

knowing his most dangerous opponent
was now on his own backbenches.

I don't think at that point
he really believed in it.

He believed it was going to lose

but he thought he was on
a sort of bet to nothing

by supporting Leave
because he would be,

you know, a sort of patriotic hero.

I remember thinking
it was nothing to do with

the EU,
Britain's place in the world,

the single market.

It was Game of Thrones, that's
what Boris Johnson was playing,

and he could see the Iron Throne
right there about to be vacated.

Order! Statement!

The Prime Minister.

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

We are a great country
and whatever choice we make,

we will still be great,

but I believe the choice is between
being an even greater Britain

inside a reformed EU
or a great leap into the unknown.

So, in the statement, there were
some very, very clear barbs there

which were designed to put
the idea about that Boris Johnson,

maybe he's just positioning himself

so that he can get the keys
to Number 10 when it's all done.

Mr Speaker,
let me end by saying this.

I am not standing for re-election.

I have no other agenda...

I have no other agenda
than what is best for our country.

It was clear that the attack on our
campaign was going to be personal

and that the way they were going
to try to defeat the arguments

for Leave was by playing the man,
not the ball.

It wasn't just the Conservatives
who were divided.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn
was preparing

to give his first speech
of the campaign.

Jeremy wanted to use that speech

to set out his own personal, erm...

...development on the issue
of the EU,

because he was constantly
being attacked

for being a closet Eurosceptic.

I was under a lot of questions
all the time about it

and so I thought it's important
that we actually stop this question

of sort of corridor conversations
the whole time with everybody.

We sent the draft to him
that was very clear.

"That's why I want Britain to remain
in the European Union."

And it would come back amended.

"So that's why Labour wants Britain
to remain in the European Union."

We've changed it around
quite a bit, actually.

Well, they're very keen on "I".

I'm not.

There's no "I" in Corbyn.

"We."

I was trying to present
"we" as the campaign,

"we" as the party,
"we" as the movement.

APPLAUSE

It's now a crucial
democratic opportunity

for people to have their say
on our country's future

and the future of our continent
as a whole.

As Alan explained, the Labour Party
is overwhelmingly for staying in.

I thought, well,
at the end of the day,

this guy is never going to give
his wholehearted support here.

A lot of people saw the referendum
as a cipher

for their own anger
at their life in our society.

Going around and telling them
to vote for the EU,

which is trying to bring in
more free market economics,

isn't going to work
and isn't going to cut it.

With two months to go,
Cameron sent out his troops

to launch the Government's campaign.

So the four of us walked out
into this big manufacturing hall

with podiums lined up
one after the other.

The riflemen
at the front of the battle.

It was a big moment for us because
it was us launching the number

that we could then put on billboards
and put in the adverts

and put in the leaflets
that would go around the country.

The Treasury has run the numbers.

- Liz Truss wasn't Liz Truss then.
- SHE CHUCKLES

She was one of the team on Remain.

If productivity falls,

we will see lower wages in Britain,

consumption will fall

and people will be
permanently poorer.

It was very clear
in the EU referendum

that people, emotionally,
were quite attached

to the idea of independence
and standing up for Britain

and being against Europe.

But the thing that concerned them,
those people,

was the economic cost, the risk.

The central estimate
is that, in the long run,

GDP would be over 6% smaller

and Britain would be worse
off by £4,300 per household.

It was all over the focus groups

and it went down
like a bucket of cold sick.

"Why isn't it 4,250 or 4,150?" They
said, "How could you possibly know?"

Which, by the way,
is a good question.

This equation that's in
the 200-page Treasury document,

which comes to the conclusion
that if Britain votes to leave

the European Union, it will cost
each and every household £4,300.

You can't sit down with them
and say, "Let us explain

"our economic modelling to you.
Do you have Excel on your computer?"

I mean, you know, you can't do that.

Try and say that out loud because
I'm not sure I could do that.

- It's...?
- Oh, my God.
- Get your glasses on.
- Really?
- Yes!

I, N, brackets, I, F, D, I,
close brackets,

equals A to the power of I, J,
plus A, one, I, N,

brackets, Y, I, T,
close brackets, plus...

I went back to the team and I said,
"It's very simple, guys.

"We are never using the words
£4,300 ever again."

The Treasury got a real bashing
and I got a real bashing,

but this is how we'd won
the last general election,

this is how Tony Blair
and Margaret Thatcher

had won elections
in the decades before us.

If we vote to leave
on the 23rd of June,

we will be voting for higher prices.

Vote Leave had produced
their own figure.

The point of using that,
really, was to try and...

To try and drive
the Remain campaign

and the people running it crazy.

Probably one of the happiest moments
of the campaign

was when it as all agreed and
just knowing how certain people

were going to react when we used
the £350 million figure.

Essentially, you have
a powerful government

that just won the election
and had a very powerful ability

to control how the media
reported the campaign.

CHEERING

Vote Leave now had their messenger.

- Can we do it? I think we can.
- CHEERING

And to attract non-Tory voters,

Labour's most prominent Brexiteer,
Gisela Stuart,

was sent around the country
with him.

- Vote leave.
- Vote leave.
- Vote leave.
- Vote leave.

I had the first experience
of what it's like

to campaign with someone
like Boris Johnson.

-
- Boris! Boris!
Boris! Boris! Boris!

People would be in upstairs windows,
opening their windows,

waving at him and shouting at him.

You almost got the sense
that Boris's presence

gave people permission to be
enthusiastic about something,

which they were told
by everybody else

they should not be
enthusiastic about.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

There you go. A delicious ice cream.

Cameras were there,
we were given ice cream.

At that moment, I start to panic
because ice cream

has a habit of dripping.

A woman in the crowd
just stepped out and said,

"Mr Johnson,
can I eat your ice cream?"

- Go on, you have the whole thing.
- Thank you very much.

There you go.
It's a delicious ice cream.

So these were the days when people
were still so loving and trusting

as to take an ice cream
from my hands and eat it.

So it was...
HE CHUCKLES

It was wonderful.

Boris had sort of chuckled nervously
over the fact that £350 million...

"We send the EU 350 million a week"

was plastered on the side
of the bus.

And I think he was like,
"How are we going to defend this?"

Let's deal with your arguments. One
of them is on the side of this bus.

We send £350 million to Europe.

- We don't and you know we don't know.
- We do.
- No, we don't.

"Yes, it is", "No, it's not",
"Yes, it is", "No, it's not",

like some comedy caper on the bus.

Admit that figure is grotesquely
misleading at best.

No, I won't, I won't, I won't.

And Dominic's view
when we raised it with him

was simply just let them
keep raising the issue.

You're wandering around this country
with a dirty, great lie on the side

- of your bus.
- No, because that
gross figure is the right figure.

Because if they say, "It's not
£350 million, it's £170 million",

anyone at home is just going
to be looking and thinking,

"£170 million a week?
That's a fuck of a lot of money."

This bus has a lot of miles
to travel in the coming weeks.

There's a lot of debate
to be had on both sides.

Tamsin Melville, BBC Spotlight,
St Austell.

I remember having a conversation
with the BBC, saying,

"Every single interview you do,

"every single piece of film
that you use has got this in it."

It's full throttle
for the Leave campaign.

"You are allowing them to put
their campaign message across

"that is not true
over and over and over again."

And I remember the person
at the BBC just sort of,

like, shrugging their shoulders
and saying,

"What do you expect me
to do about it?"

You can see Boris Johnson attempting
to angle grind it into oblivion.

Nigel Farage was determined not to
let Boris Johnson steal the show.

He was running a separate
Leave campaign

and took his own bus and message
on tour around the country.

Boris comes out and says, "Yeah...",

you know,
"..I'm going to embrace leave."

I said, "Thank goodness for that.
He'll help get us over the line."

But never for one moment
did I think I could step back.

I'd already been on this journey
for well over 20 years.

So we did it with a bit of noise,
we did it with a bit of colour.

THEY SING ALONG TO THE THEME MUSIC
OF 'THE GREAT ESCAPE'

Do you like the theme tune,
The Great Escape?

Because that's what we've got to do,
isn't it? We've got to escape.

Who do you think came up
with the idea? Nigel.

He's a pantomime vaudeville act.

Are you voting for Brexit, sir?

50-50?
It's going to be really close.

This bus was shit.

To get it repainted was more
expensive than the actual bus.

It was falling to bits.

It was a mess inside.
No toilets, no seats downstairs,

and a driver who should never be
allowed to drive ever.

We knew that borders, mass migration
were huge, huge issues,

and we knew that we had to
prosecute that argument

because a softer
Vote Leave campaign,

particularly with Johnson on board,

were unlikely to make it.

We've given away everything.

We piled into immigration and
the engagement was extraordinary.

We've given away our passports.

The places we had chosen,
these were all Labour heartlands.

We realised that it was
in the Labour heartlands,

the working men and women,
that felt left behind

and disconnected
from the political discourse.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Boris and I did speak on the phone
very regularly through the campaign,

compared notes, talked about
who was doing what,

who was visiting where,
so we did talk.

I do remember talking once,
at least once,

probably at most once to Nigel

about the way the campaign was going
and what we could do together.

I said to Boris one Sunday morning,
"What about we all merge in,

"I don't know, Andover?
Anywhere you like."

"Oh, yes", he said. "It'll be like
the Russians and the Americans

"meeting on the Elbe in 1945."

I said, "Well, I hadn't quite
thought of it that way,

"but, I mean, fine", you know?

And he was very enthused by it.

And then he said to me,
"Let me ask my people."

"Sorry? What do you mean?"

Dominic Cummings' view was that
Nigel Farage had ardent support

but there was a ceiling to it

and that you would never win
a campaign that Nigel Farage led

if you needed more than 50%
of the public to support it.

There was a sense that there was
a possibility that Farage

could somehow taint the campaign

and engagement with him
was not a good look.

I was really clear,
Dom was really clear,

everyone in the campaign was clear -

absolutely not.

Cummings may not have wanted
to join forces with Farage,

but he wasn't above stealing
his message on immigration.

We are giving £2 billion

to Macedonia, Serbia, Albania,

Montenegro and Turkey

to join the EU.

I was at my in-laws in Wiltshire

and I got a call from Boris

and I went outside
to the front gate to take it,

and when I pressed the button,

I went to put it up to my...
And it was like that.

I hated it and I was very angry

and I thought this wasn't agreed,
this wasn't what we wanted,

and, you know, I hit the roof.

"Have you seen the effing poster?

"Have you seen the effing advert
from Dominic?"

You know, I've got Turkish
ancestors myself. Very proud of it.

I thought to start casting it
purely in terms of, erm,

being hostile to immigrants...

Which is partly, by the way,
sorry, the problem with,

you know, the other chap
we've just been talking about,

because their campaign was all
about being hostile to immigrants

and that wasn't where I was.

I put the phone on the gate
and stepped back a few feet

and I could still hear him.

And I went back to get the phone

and I urged him to calm down.

Everybody who knows anything
about the subject

knows there was not a cat's chance
in Hades of Turkey joining the EU.

Erm, that wasn't going to happen.

He said to me, "I'm getting in the
car, I'm driving back to London.

"I'm going to have it out with him.
I'm going to have it out with him."

And I thought, Christ, he's going
to go round to Dominic's

and whack him.

I wish I had. God, it would have
saved me a lot of trouble.

That would have been a brilliant
idea! God, I wish I'd done that!

What a fantastic thing to have done.
Erm...

I think I thought about resigning

but in the end I just
dissociated myself from that.

There were moments in the campaign

where you just couldn't believe
what you were seeing.

Sort of nativist, Faragist,

bunch of claims about immigration
that simply aren't true,

and the idea that Turkey
was going to join the EU

any time soon was nonsense.

I constantly said to David Cameron,
"We need to be clear on this.

"We have to make clear
that we have a veto

"and that we would use it
in any suggestion

"that Turkey was going to
join the EU."

It was very difficult
because I was a campaigner

but I was also the Prime Minister,

erm, and there were, you know,
important relationships,

whether with Turkey
or other European countries

that, you know, you're trying
to think, "I have to think

"about these relationships
as well as about the campaign."

This idea that there was going
to be a sort of, you know,

reasoned debate
just disappeared out the window,

and, I mean,
it was a political campaign

and it was a very hard-fought,
sometimes quite grubby campaign.

Good morning.
It's 13 minutes to eight.

The Sun, in its lead, says claims
have been swirling around

Westminster and online
that Marina Wheeler was the QC

caught in a drunken clinch
with another lawyer

at Waterloo Station last summer.

I got wind of the fact that
there was a rumour around about me.

I don't remember the details

but it definitely involved
some knickers somewhere.

Anyway, first, I didn't think
very much about it and I thought,

"Well, it will be obvious
it wasn't me

"because I wasn't in the country
at that time."

But then I did start to think
people were avoiding me.

I was very, very wound up
by the personal attacks.

Not just playing the man, not the
ball, but playing the man's wife!

And, you know, what kind of
politics is it

where they go for people's wives?

Dominic Cummings saw an opportunity.

We convene in Dom's office

and Dom says, "This is Osborne.

"This has to be Osborne."

And we immediately
just explain it to Boris.

An additional kiloton of iron
entered his soul at that point.

I probably thought,
"Well, sod it", you know?

"Don't get mad, get even."

And I thought, "Well,
we've just got to win this thing."

And it was from that moment
that he said,

"I am prepared to go on TV tomorrow
and talk about immigration."

George Osborne says
it's utterly untrue

he was the source of the article.

Nonetheless, Cummings' claim worked.

Boris Johnson took the gloves off
at a crucial moment -

the day the annual immigration
figures were announced.

We went to Four Millbank,

where we do all the interviews
for the various broadcasters...

...and I remember walking up
the stairs

as the numbers arrived, and they
pinged into my inbox on my phone,

and I remember looking at it
and thinking, "Crikey."

He went and articulated
and bossed an argument

that was all the more compelling

because he was a pro-immigration
Mayor of London.

These figures have just come out.

What do you make of them
in the broad sense?

I think that they show the scandal

of the promise made
by politicians repeatedly

that they could cut immigration
to the tens of thousands.

We've now got a city the size
of Oxford from the EU alone.

333,000 net
from all around the world.

The situation is completely
out of control.

The only way to sort it out
is vote leave on June the 23rd

and take back control.

I was very concerned about this
because, to be frank about it,

when we were talking about
the economy, we were winning,

when we were talking about
immigration, we were losing.

The team running the Remain campaign
wanted the Prime Minister

to challenge Vote Leave's
immigration offensive.

I said, "We've really got to make
a blockbuster speech

"and confront them over this issue
of immigration."

I think I was very clear,

I think Peter Mandelson was clear

that it wasn't enough
simply to go on the economy.

That while our economic message
was critical,

it was necessary for us to win
the campaign, it was not sufficient.

I said this to Number 10,
but they said,

"No. No, no, no, no, no.
We've got to stick to economics.

"The moment we start talking
about immigration,

"we'll start playing their game."

The decision was taken
that we shouldn't go out there

and add more fuel to the fire,

that we actually needed to
double down on the economy

and wrecking the economy
being the centre of our campaign.

Now a referendum campaign broadcast
by the Stronger in Europe campaign.

This is Sam.

He's 14 months old.

How you vote in the European
referendum will shape his future

and the future of everyone
in our country.

If we remain in Europe,
there will be more opportunities

for our children
to follow their dreams

and make the most out of life

because being in Europe
helps our businesses grow.

We had to keep doubling down
on the economy

because that was the one issue
that might switch people

who otherwise were going
to vote leave.

Despite refusing to confront
immigration head on,

Cameron chose to share a platform
with Nigel Farage,

hoping to expose the leader
of a party he'd once described

as a bunch of fruitcakes,
loonies and closet racists.

So we arrived for the debate
with Nigel Farage

in the Prime Minister's
official convoy,

only to see this purple
open-top bus

with Nigel Farage arriving
at the same time.

He was coming into the green room
and I was wandering out

with a cigarette, actually,
to be honest with you.

So I said, "Nigel, go.
Let's go, go, go.

We could see them walking.

So Nigel... Literally,
we're running to get to this door,

knowing that this collision
would be news.

So I said, "Hello, David."
He's like, "Ooh..."

I mean, he sort of asked how I was
and we exchanged pleasantries.

I looked at him and I thought,
"I'll tell you what,

"if I feel nervous,
you look really nervous."

You know, the concept of doing
something with Farage was different

but, on the other hand,
I was persuaded,

well, actually, having a moment
where you can see

what lies behind the campaign,
ie Farage,

and what the Prime Minister
is saying,

that's a good contrast.

APPLAUSE

Good evening. There are now just
16 days to go before the UK

makes a momentous decision to stay
in or to leave the European Union.

First up this evening
is Nigel Farage.

Hi, Nigel.

I know a lot of people...
I have an access to

a predominantly black
British audience,

and a lot of the concerns
that they have raised

is that you are going to increase

the fear and discrimination
of black British people

through your anti-immigration
rhetoric.

- Well...
- Are you encouraging racism?

I don't think you could be
more wrong, and here's why.

I take a very strongly
pro-Commonwealth view.

I think it was very bad and wrong
of us to turn our backs

on the Commonwealth in favour
of a European political project.

- You're still anti-immigration,
so I don't see...
- I'm sorry...

You are anti-immigration.

You've used scaremongering
and inflammatory comments

in your campaign that have gone
against people that look non-white.

- If you really...
- How are non-white British people

going to stop facing discrimination
about their identity

and nationality in this country?
That is what I really want to know.

It was quite difficult,

with a very engaged,

quite noisy studio audience,
to get through.

- You know, if you want to think
that...
- I don't "think" that.

The majority of people that look
black, British or non-white...

- Well, lots of them...
- ...have those
concerns.
- I can't do a lot

- unless I'm allowed talk.
- She's put
a very clear question to you.

I'm explaining to you
our current open border policy

is damaging all of our communities,

and here's our chance, maybe our
one and only chance as a nation,

to get a grip on this issue.

Next, it was Cameron's turn,

but the immigration issue
didn't go away.

I voted for you in the last election
because one of the things

on your manifesto
was to get immigration down.

You haven't been able to do that
because you're not allowed

to do that. That's the bottom line.

I don't agree with that. I think
the biggest risk we can take

is to pull out of the EU,
pull out of the single market,

damage our businesses, damage jobs,

and there'll be fewer opportunities
for our children and grandchildren.

And I say again, I hope that when
people go to vote on June the 23rd,

they vote to say we don't want
little England of Nigel Farage,

we want to be Great Britain and
we're great if we stay in these

organisations and fight for
the sort of values we believe in.

With a fortnight to go,
the Remain campaign

sought to demonstrate another cost
of leaving the EU.

-
- Two retirees
on a morning stroll,

except John Major and Tony Blair
were in Northern Ireland

on business, walking the famous
Peace Bridge for a purpose.

The two former prime ministers
argued a vote to leave

would put at risk the peace
they had painfully constructed.

So throw away the membership
of Europe

and don't be surprised if,
in the end, as a consequence,

we accidentally throw away
our union as well.

We say to the Leave campaign
very directly,

you have fundamental questions
to answer about Northern Ireland

about the Common Travel Area,
about the effect of leaving the EU

on the future make-up
of the United Kingdom.

That night, on national TV,
Remain drove the point home.

We've had two former prime ministers
in Ireland today

pointing out the issue there, where
once more Vote Leave have no plan

for what the border would look like.
We don't know.

There is danger to the union as well
from this proposal to leave.

There is a successful union
and it's a United Kingdom.

There's an unsuccessful union
and it's called the European Union.

What really, really mattered was
repetition of take back control.

Boris Johnson.

On June the 23rd, we all face
a historic choice -

to remain locked in a European Union

or to take back control.

- Take back control.
- Take back
control.
- Take back control.

It was destabilising

to have them constantly saying "Take
back control" at us the whole time.

- Take back control.
- To take back control.

Take back control
of huge sums of money.

Being repeated and repeated
and repeated.

Take back control of our borders,
take back control of our economic

policy, our tax, our trade, and
take back control of our democracy.

It was a simple answer
to a complicated question

and it implied to people that they
had some sort of control as well.

There's another one.

...dictating to us how we ran our
country. I want my country back.

As door-to-door campaigning
ramped up in the final two weeks,

Leave's message
was clearly resonating

with traditional Labour voters.

People realise now nothing changes.

That's why they're looking
for an alternative.

I know the 1% in their ivory towers
are just laughing their tits off.

It became clear to me
the Remain message

was not cutting through at all,

erm, in working class communities

in the Midlands or the North.

Jeremy was continually
campaigning throughout.

I mean, he was actually
probably more extensive

than any other party leader.

I mean, he did rallies
in every part of Britain.

I went to Aberdeen because I was
told, "This is going to be great.

"People in Scotland
are totally going to vote yes.

"You'll get a great reception and
they'll understand your message."

I said, "OK."

Those who want to tear up
regulations

are those that want to tear up
workers' rights.

We know which side we -
the Labour Party - are on, OK?

CHEERING

It ends up with a whole lot
of people

from the fishing industry turn up.

They've seen cuts,
they've seen austerity,

their kids are in debt, their
kids can't get council housing,

"And you expect us
to stay in the European Union?"

...politics in the West Midlands.

CHEERING

Fearing the worst,
Cameron wanted Corbyn to campaign

at more high profile media events
in the final stretch.

There was a speech at De Montfort
University where I stood aside

and gave the platform
to the Leader of the Opposition -

to the leader of the Labour Party,
and they didn't step up.

I only actually heard about this
sort of second hand, basically,

because people said to me,

"Cameron wants you to speak
in De Montfort University."

I said, "Well, whatever Cameron
wants is not my business."

APPLAUSE

I came in at the last minute.

I wasn't really supposed to be
doing that speech.

Maybe I was the fifth, sixth
or seventh choice, I don't know,

but I ended up there
and we had a good meeting.

45% of our exports
go to the European Union.

3.2 million jobs related
to these exports to Europe.

And if we lost these jobs,
it would be a huge disaster

for industrial communities
who depend on them.

Of course, if we didn't have
all Labour figures working together,

doing the same things and saying
roughly the same things at the same

time, it wasn't going to have
the difference it should have made.

From our point of view,
and the kind of approach

which was favoured by the kind of
traditional Labour establishment,

was really having no impact at all

and was, if anything,
turning people off more.

With just eight days to go,

Remain worried their warnings
had not got through.

Standing alongside
his Labour predecessor,

the Chancellor threatened voters
if the UK left the EU

he would introduce an immediate
emergency budget.

There will be a hole
in the public finances.

You've got chancellors from two
different political parties saying

that taxes will have to go up,
spending will have to be cut.

That is the reality
of quitting the EU.

I was utterly committed
to trying to win this campaign

because I was utterly convinced
that it was a disaster for Britain.

The sorts of tax rises we could see
include a 2p rise

on the basic rate of income tax,

a 3p rise in the higher rate,

5% increases in duties
on alcohol and on fuel,

a 5% increase in the basic rate
of inheritance tax.

Suddenly, all these Tories came out,
many of whom had been my friends

in the past and said, "George
Osborne has crossed the line.

"This is outrageous.
We won't support this budget."

It was plainly untrue that

these things would come to pass,

which it promised. It was plainly
not what would ever happen.

We recognise that this is just
a scary story, a campaign tactic.

We don't expect it ever
to be brought forward.

It would be a repudiation
of many of our manifesto promises

and that's why we won't
stand for it.

Within hours, Steve Baker
had got more than 50 Tory MPs

to sign a statement threatening
to bring down their own government

if Osborne proceeded
with his budget.

It was a great campaigning moment
to take the wheels

off George Osborne's nonsense,
and actually gives me some pleasure

to have done it, given the contempt
which actually I feel

for that kind of campaigning tactic,
to have destroyed it.

That's definitely the moment when,
you know,

Second Lieutenant George Osborne
got out of the trenches

and got shot by the machineguns
on the other side.

And, you know,
my own kind of ambitions

to be leader of the Tory Party
probably died that day.

With civil war breaking out
inside Parliament,

outside Nigel Farage
was heading there

with an armada of angry fishermen

who believed the EU
was destroying their livelihoods.

We had little boats that had
come from Bradwell in Essex.

We had a huge pelagic vessel

that had come down
from the north of Scotland.

But some ardent Remainers

were determined to drown out
Farage's flotilla.

Blow me down, onboard is Bob Geldof,

Boris Johnson's sister,

many of the great and the good
from Kensington and Chelsea.

Bob Geldof called and said
would I like to be in involved

in some crazed stunt
that he was organising,

so I said, "No."

I said, "Why not?, and she said,

"Because I don't want to just
publicly go against my brother."

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

And they were trying to cut us up,
and so our boat was going like this

with all these little
trawlers, like Wacky Races.

At which point the husband of an MP,
Jo Cox,

came swarming out
from amongst all these barges.

Brendan Cox with his two kids
with their In flags.

Up then pipes this huge,
great big loudspeaker.

You are no fisherman's friend!

You are on the European Parliament
Fishing Committee,

and you attended
one out of 43 meetings!

You're a fraud, Nigel!

"You're a fraud, Nigel!
You're a fraud!"

Go back down the river,
cos you're up one without a canoe.

We were broadsiding them
with rock and roll, you know?

"I'm in with the in crowd."

♪ I go where the in crowd goes... ♪

I've got Woodstock,
I've got Live Aid,

I've got Glastonbury on my boat.

♪ And I know
what the in crowd knows... ♪

And the harbour master
keeps coming up to our boat

and telling us
to turn the music down.

Bob Geldof says, "Well, there's only
one thing to do at this point."

And I was like, "What's that?"

He said, "Well, I'm going to
ring the Prime Minister."

He says, "Bob, I'm really busy."

I just sort of talked to him and
said, "Look, I've got to get on

- "with Prime Minister's Questions."
- And I said,

"Farage is coming up the river
to park outside Parliament

"with a load of fishermen
and disrupting PMQs."

He says, "Who told you that?"

I said, "What do you mean,
who told me that? We're there now."

I wasn't quite sure
what I was meant to do,

so I think it was a
relatively brief conversation.

I couldn't suddenly
call the Coastguard.

♪ Spending cash, talking trash... ♪

The volume
was absolutely extraordinary,

and the level of personal invective
and abuse

that was used against me was huge.

♪ I don't care where you've been

♪ You ain't been nowhere
till you been in... ♪

Sometimes things
can be reduced to a gesture,

you know, you can go like that

or you can go like that.
I go with the latter.

There were these wonderful
fishing boats with, you know,

adorned with these
kind of salty dog types.

And there we were,
these metropolitan wankers.

And suddenly the fishermen,

they're surrounding me now
and going...

...apoplectic.

Really, I've never seen people
so dangerously angry.

And that's when it turned
to Geldof against the fishermen

as opposed to Geldof against me.

There was one guy screaming at me,

really alongside our boat.

And I just said,
"Well, come on board."

You're all wrong. And I will
stand on this boat and I'll say

you are wrong and you are wrong
and you are wrong and you're wrong.

Not one of you lot look like you
have come out of Southend-on-Sea.

Everything in that man's voice...

...you know, everything, his anger,

his rage about his future
or the future of his family,

everything was wrapped up
in his loathing of me

and all the people
who were trying to stop Brexit.

- Boris will help us.
- No, he won't.
- He will.

Referendum aren't about facts.
It's all about emotion.

And that landed.

Traitor! Traitor!

And that was the moment we won,

I think, the biggest PR victory
of the whole campaign.

The next day,
Farage staged another event,

determined immigration dominate
the final days of the campaign.

I see poster trucks there and there.

The more outrageous you are,
the more attention you get.

The more attention you get,
the more outrageous you become.

Well, joining me is the UKIP leader
Nigel Farage.

And let me put it to you, that is
an extraordinarily incendiary poster

to suggest Britain is somehow
at breaking point.

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.

Every one of these
can get to Calais.

We know how bad our government is
at defending our borders,

and within a few years, all of these
people will have EU passports.

While the media was going crazy
about this poster,

I got a phone call

from somebody in MI5

who was saying that they thought

that Jo Cox had been
very, very severely injured

by somebody who attacked her.

SIREN WAILS IN DISTANCE

The Labour MP Jo Cox
is in a critical condition

after being shot and stabbed
in her constituency.

What alerted local people
were the sounds of screaming.

Mad, loud, manic screaming,

followed immediately by people
rushing out to her aid with towels

and tea blankets and suchlike
to try and stem the flow of blood.

She only spoke a couple of days ago

about how excited
the children had been

to be involved in the flotilla
on the Thames

as part of the European referendum
campaigns. Of course,

nobody could have foreseen
that this was going to happen.

I knew Jo Cox well.

She was one of the most tolerant,

outward-going people,

prepared to listen to everybody

and wanting people to come together.

The thing that surprises me
time and time again

as I travel around the constituency
is that we are far more united

and have far more in common
than that which divides us.

She represented something
about tolerance

and about understanding each other

and about building bridges
and about cutting across divides.

And yet this campaign
has descended into something

that really does no justice
to the kind of politics

and the kind of society
that we want to see.

-
- This is the man
accused of murdering her.

Eyewitnesses say he said,
"Britain First,"

and, "This is for Britain,"
as he attacked Jo Cox.

That night, uh, there was
a conversation on the phone

between myself, Gisela,
Boris, and Dominic Cummings.

I remember thinking, you know,

"My God, is this really...
Is it really us who have done...

"Is it... Is it true that
this campaign has released

"these appalling feelings
in people?"

I literally had people
coming up to me and telling me

that I had killed Jo Cox.

Uh, and that's why
it's really, really hard.

All three of us -
Boris, Gisela, and me - were upset.

We were convinced, by the way,
that it was over for the campaign.

You know, we thought,
"Well, you know, um...

"..people will think
this is a horrible, nasty, uh,

"xenophobic campaign that's
bringing out the worst in people."

We all agreed
we would stop campaigning.

Do you regret
your breaking point poster?

Well, it said the EU
has failed us all,

and it was designed
for us to say to people

we do not want to stay part
of a union that has failed...

I'm used to criticism,

but that Sunday
was of a different level.

It was of a different level.

Um...

Completely unfair. Unrelated.

But that's by the by.

The Remain camp
are using these awful circumstances

to try to say that the motives of
one deranged, dangerous individual

were similar of half the country,
or perhaps more,

who believe we should leave the EU.

I said, "Look, I'm really sorry
that, you know,

"this happened at this moment."

Um, didn't apologise for the poster
itself or the... the... the...

Any sense
of what it was trying to convey,

that Europe's
making a catastrophic mistake.

We shouldn't allow ourselves
to be part of it. Um...

But I apologise, obviously,
if anyone thought that this was

what the Leave campaign was about,
which it clearly wasn't.

The polls were swinging
towards Remain.

David Cameron
wanted to resume campaigning

with a display of national unity.

I remember ringing Gordon with this
idea that we should have, you know,

the four living Prime Ministers -

Tony Blair, Gordon Brown,
John Major and myself -

outside Downing Street
on lecterns, a lectern each,

explaining why we as serving
and previous Prime Ministers

thought it was in Britain's national
interest. We would be stronger,

safer, better off if we stayed.

And I said,
"Look, that will not work,

"because why people
are voting against us,

"particularly Labour voters,

"is they see it
as an establishment stitch-up.

"It's nothing to do with them.
Europe is some far off place

"and it's not really
benefiting their lives."

I respected his arguments,
he's a highly intelligent man,

but I was a bit frustrated
because I thought,

"Look, it may not
be the perfect idea,

"but there's something about the
striking image and reality of people

"with radically different opinions
about life

"saying we should stay in."

And he said,
"We need a shock factor."

And I said to him,
"Look, we've had the shock factor.

"Jo Cox was assassinated."

Instead of what I would have called
an establishment stitch-up,

I wanted a different proposal,
which was all the Labour leaders

trying to get the Labour vote out.

That was the vote
that was most at risk

and they would all appear together
and speak together

about the importance
of staying inside the European Union

and leading Europe, not leaving it.

The call was made to Jeremy Corbyn.

I said, "Absolutely, no."

Um... listen, Blair...

...started my leadership campaign

by saying,

"If you've got a heart
to vote for Jeremy Corbyn,

"you need a heart transplant."

And he was unremitting
in his attacks and abuse on me

the whole time, and remained so.

It was barely a decade after the

invasion/occupation of Iraq.

A significant section

of the British public still regarded
Tony Blair as a war criminal.

Cos the people that had voted for me
had clearly voted for me

as an alternative to Blair,
the war, the free market,

and all the other stuff
that Blair's so keen on.

So, no.

-
- Feeling confident,
Prime Minister?

CAMERAS CLICK

Polling day itself
was quite a strange day,

because 23rd of June was the date
that my oldest daughter

was graduating from St Andrews.

And it was a difficult day
because, obviously, Boris was there,

very visible, attracting quite
a lot of, um, notice and attention.

The atmosphere you could have cut
with a knife. I mean, my goodness.

I mean, you could not find
a more Remain, uh, environment.

And, you know, they looked at me
as though like, you know,

God, something the cat brought in.

Things were dragging on a bit
and I remember saying to Marina,

"We've got to go."

We were miles and miles from London

and miles and miles
from the polling station.

It would really not be great
if Boris missed the, um, polls,

having led the Vote Leave campaign.

Um, I don't think he would have
heard the end of that.

We eventually landed
at City Airport in London

with about an hour to go or so.

Boris said, "Let's go on the DLR."

We rushed across to vote
with sort of 15 minutes to spare.

Loads of photographers
follow us back to the house.

We got through the front door
and virtually the first thing

that appears on the BBC
special coverage

is news that Boris Johnson
has told a man on the Underground

that they're not going to win
the referendum.

And I remember looking at him
and just saying,

"How many times have I told you?
Don't speak to people on the Tube."

Good evening and welcome,
at the end of this momentous day,

when each one of us has had
the chance to say

what kind of country
we want to live in.

So, the evening
of the referendum campaign

sort of started quite confidently,

because these opinion poll
organisations were saying, um,

that they thought
that we had won.

The polling stations close after
weeks, months, years of argument

and we'll have the answer
to the question

that's haunted British politics
for so long -

do we want to be in
or out of the EU?

When ten o'clock came,
it's like all the adrenaline's gone.

And I said, mistakenly,
"Well, you know what?

"Maybe the other side will win."

Take this with a pinch of salt
but we have had, uh...

We've spoken to Nigel Farage.

"It's been an extraordinary
referendum campaign."

This is Nigel Farage. "Turnout
looks to be exceptionally high

"and looks like
Remain will edge it."

I sort of began to sink a little bit
cos there was nothing more I can do.

I've tried so hard.

The total number of votes cast
in favour of Remain was

51,930.

The total number of votes
cast in favour of Leave was

82,000...

CHEERING

I thought,
"Wow! That's a huge, huge, uh...

"That's much bigger
than they were forecasting."

So I was watching the snake on...

I was watching the Betfair numbers

and seeing suddenly it kinked,
uh, for Leave.

The total number of votes
cast in favour of Leave was...

...67,251.

CHEERING
Goodbye, Brussels!

I remember my daughter, Nancy,
was sort of sitting next to me

around this table, we were watching
the TV and she sort of said,

"Dad, we're losing this."
And I could... I could feel it.

I remember going up
to my own apartment,

which was in 10 Downing Street,
sort of lying on the sofa,

and my family were asleep -
it was, like, three in the morning -

and just going,
"Everything is in ruins."

So it wasn't just my own personal
ambitions that were being...

You know, going up in smoke. It was
also I felt deeply patriotic

that my country was making
a really terrible wrong turn.

The British people have spoken
and the answer is we're out.

CHEERING

I've campaigned for something

that everybody told me
was a waste of time,

I was wasting my time.

And a dream that I had
and pursued relentlessly

had actually come to pass.

Let June the 23rd go down in our
history as our Independence Day!

CHEERING

In the end,
Leave had won by 4%,

52 to 48.

I just felt I'd have no credibility.

I felt that the country needed
a new Prime Minister.

Samantha agreed about that.

Uh, I remember her saying, you know,

"Gosh, I just don't think
I can face going out there."

I love this country and I feel
honoured to have served it,

and I will do everything I can
in future

to help this great country succeed.

Thank you very much.

And I remember Boris just saying,

"Jesus Christ, poor Sam.
What the hell? What the hell?"

And he was obsessed
by her sort of reaction.

Well, what I felt was...

..."Right, um...

..."we're going to
have to do something.

"It's going to have to involve me.

"I better... We better go down
and give a press conference

"and try and... Try and settle
things, try and steady the ship".

CROWD SHOUTS

It was that moment
when we walked out the door

that I knew that probably
the course of the country,

certainly Boris' part in it,
had changed forever.

SHOUTING

You know, suddenly, you know,
having been used to, um...

...you know, people being...
People heckle,

people shout jocular insults,
"You Tory tosser," and so on,

but they were really angry.
They were really upset.

SHOUTING

Shame on you, Boris!

We managed to get in the car

with the help of
quite a few police officers,

and the car left the front
and sped off down the road.

And at the end of their road there
is a traffic light and it was green.

And just before he reached it,

it went orange and he braked
and it went red and he stopped.

BOOING

And instantly we were
surrounded by protesters

and really, really angry people.

It was then that I, you know,
I really felt the... the strength

of people's feeling about this.

I underestimated

how deeply it spoke to people.

For the first time I'd ever seen him
looking, like, properly fearful,

not necessarily
just for his own safety,

but for a sense of kind of
what has this unleashed?

Taking control, Boris?

Obviously, we were delighted
that we'd won, but conscious

that we were embarking on
what would be a difficult path.

I don't think any of us realised
quite how difficult it would be.

Suddenly the people are looking
at you thinking, you know,

"You're in charge of defence,

"you're in charge of tax,
you're in charge of everything."

For those who may be anxious,
whether at home or abroad,

this does not mean

that the United Kingdom
will be in any way less united.

Nor, indeed, does it mean
that it will be any less European.

We didn't ha... You know, we didn't
have a plan for what to do next,

because we didn't think
it was our job to... to have a plan.

♪ Out of control

♪ Out of control

♪ Out of control... ♪