All language subtitles for Brexit.A.Very.British.Civil.War.S01E01.Demons.Unleashed.1080p.WEB.H264-CBFM[EZTVx.to]_track3_[eng]

This programme contains
some strong language

Ten years ago, God, Brexit.

The vote to leave the European Union

changed the course
of British history.

Both seems unimaginably distant
and like yesterday.

Ten years on, this is the story
of the EU referendum

told by those inside the campaigns.

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 look 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."

CHEERING

I got the impression
very, very early

that the people that ran Vote Leave,
they didn't really want to win.

It 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 he could see 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.

Morning, Ed. Hello, morning.
Morning.

As the country voted
in the 2015 general election,

few expected it would lead
to a referendum

on whether Britain
should leave the EU.

What's going to happen?

What's going to go on?

The Mail -
"One in four are still undecided."

The Express -
"Vote to keep Britain great."

The Guardian -
"It couldn't be closer."

"Well hung," says The Sun.

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,

cos 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 poll
as if it was yesterday.

It was a moment of great joy for me,
that we had worked really hard,

I think we'd run a good government
for five 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.

CHEERING

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 some 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 party.

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.

CHEERING

Craig Mackinlay,

the Conservative Party candidate.

18,838.

CHEERING

Election day 2015.
Didn't win the seat down in Thanet.

So, yeah, there was a sense
of disappointment about that.

When the count came through,

I remember him walking offstage,

we went out the back,

and he sat in the corner on his own
for about ten minutes.

He was exhausted.
He was pissed off. He had lost.

So there he was on the clifftop.
"That's it, I'm finished."

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

that has not been dominated 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.

This way.

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 woke 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 he thanks 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 expected to 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,
you know, 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 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

"cos you thought you'd bargain
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,
and that was going to dominate

the coming period in politics.

Before holding the referendum,

David Cameron promised
to renegotiate

Britain's relationship with the EU.

REPORTER: 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.

REPORTER: 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.

REPORTER: 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, "Yes, yes.
Let's go and do that."

So I said,
"Why don't you come to Belize?"

I went away with one of my advisers,
with Arron Banks, for a few days.

And we talked about
what would the sequencing being,

what would the time being?

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.

The 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 all was 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.

Morning, Nigel. Good morning.

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
who 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 to run it.

Gordon Brown's
chief economic adviser

is now republishing a pamphlet

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

15 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 a bit like a sort of
SAS general. He's able to...

If you sort of point to the
fortification you want to take,

he's, you know, all-in to take that
fortification, come what may,

using whatever methods necessary
to do it.

Elliott 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 stats,

the so-called Pink Book,

and found the numbers
and, simple, divide it by 52.

And so it was, roughly speaking,

about £350 million a week,
you know, taken as a gross figure.

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

And I said,
"Oh, why do you want it?"

He goes, "Oh, no reason.
Don't worry about it."

Every week, the United Kingdom

sends £350 million

of taxpayers' money to the EU.

We did use it deliberately.

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

What's the true balance sheet?

That's £20 billion per year.

The reason why
that figure drove everyone crazy

is that we were using true 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 the Vote Leave
was launched, you know,

and that was in direct response
to 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 sophisticated 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 Arron, um,

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.

You know,
that he was a political spad

that had never
done anything with his life,

never amounted to anything,
and who was he to tell me,

um, you know, anything, really?

And then he responded with,
uh, you know,

a four-letter expletive
starting with C.

HE LAUGHS

That's when we knew
pretty much that, um,

there's no way there was going to be
any, um, joining of the forces.

Meanwhile, the Remain side
had their own problems.

Peter Mandelson was an experienced
former Labour minister

and EU Commissioner.

He was organising
a cross-party campaign

and wanted to get the Prime Minister
signed up right away.

I met David Cameron at a leaving
party for a Number 10 official

and he came 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."

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 that 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.

REPORTER: A moment some of his
critics hoped they'd never see.

Now the challenge is,
can 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 a kind of

absolutely Remain enthusiastic.

A lot of the Shadow Cabinet
were very anxious about that.

They wanted just a very clear answer
from Jeremy.

"You are supporting in?"

And Jeremy sort of paused
and gave his view of the EU,

which is a mixed bag.

I was saying that
I see social 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'd just cut him off

and go, "But we are supporting in."

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
jointly with the Conservatives

or Liberal Democrats.
It was going to be our campaign,

it'd 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 cross-party group
decided to press on and launch,

using the name...

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 Marks & 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 you're the man to do it."

And I said, "You must be joking."

And then I had another phone call,
you know, an hour later saying that,

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

"Stuart, you're just the man."
I kept saying, "No, no, no, no,

"I'm not the man."

But they leant 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 are 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,

and it's very hard to stand up
when someone gives you a script

and suddenly starts spouting forth
on this stuff

when half of it you don't believe.
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, cos 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,"
while trying to change the 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

and 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 saying that...

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. 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 catalysed 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 the 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,

but they 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 comfortable with the Remain
campaign was our insistence

that we understood economic risk

had to be a critical part
of the message.

The other thing I was
keen to persuade them of

is that we weren't
a bunch of Euro nutters,

that we did understand,
you know,

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.

REPORTER: A desperate scramble
to get on board

as Hungary opens its main railway
station to thousands of migrants

who want to get to western Europe.

We are real people!

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

We are human.
We're trying to be someplace safe.

Why they're hitting us?

REPORTER: 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 adviser than a friend,

um, was that immigration
was going to be key.

Unless, 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
from other EU countries

was simply to have
an emergency brake,

a cap on numbers, so that if,
for instance,

in a given year
it was going over 50,000,

you could say, "Right.
We're pulling the emergency brake,"

the cap comes into operation,

no more 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,
of 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, all of 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..."

You know, "I'm the Prime Minister,
this is Chequers." You know,

"This is the environment."

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 European Union.

But David, on the whole,
didn't really like talking in detail

about politics or policy
when he had downtime.

It might come up, uh, tangentially,
uh, but it wasn't a subject that,

uh, he liked to address.

And I had my own reasons
for not really wanting to disturb

the festive atmosphere by bringing
up anything uncomfortable.

Dave's a very diplomatic human,
actually.

Uh, I've always admired
that ability.

And he just sort of, uh, 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 hope 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's like,

"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.

David Cameron's point of view
in meetings, he would say,

"Look, we've got to 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, um,

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, you know, 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.

Um, I had this wonderful deal

where I could use the American
ambassador's court

next to Regent's Park,

and it was a sort of peaceful place
to go for some rest and recreation.

I love playing tennis, and, um,

Dave is actually very good.

He's a left-hander, um...

Sorry, left-hander.

And he's very hard to beat.
I've never beaten him.

I think my sister Rachel
has 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... He then said,

"Look, um, would you consider
joining us on the Remain campaign?"

And, you know,
"It'd be much better...

"I'd love to have you
in the cabinet,

"you should have a top five job."

And I wasn't sure
what the exact hierarchy was.

I knew there was, uh... You know,

I've obviously thought about it,
uh, out of pure curiosity, you know,

what was this job?
There's Prime Minister,

um, uh, Home Secretary...
Lord Chancellor, Home Secretary,

Foreign Secretary, uh...
That's four.

And what is the fifth? A mystery.

I didn't say which job it was.
I said, "Be in no doubt,"

you know, "Defence is a top five
job, for instance."

I wanted him, you know,
to understand

that I valued his contribution,

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, yeah, 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.

CBI! Shame on you!
CBI! Voice of Brussels.

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

Vote Leave's chief strategist
Dominic Cummings

was already working
to sabotage this.

APPLAUSE

One of the most important things
that a government can deliver

is long-term economic security
and stability.

CBI! Voice of Brussels.

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, um, we pretended
to be businessmen.

Shame on you!

It became clear very quickly
after the event

that certain people,
certain MPs,

really didn't like what we had done.

I was absolutely furious.

I'm afraid I...

Even now I want
politics to be noble.

I think politics is 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

of a fundamental requirement
of our campaign

that it should leave
the Conservative Party

fit to actually carry out
the result of the referendum,

whichever way it 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 Leave

could be some kind of
political terrorist campaign,

just blowing things up.

Dominic was absolutely furious

and he took me outside into
the stairwell and bellowed at me.

I'd been at work
during the day,

and so I went over
to the offices

at about six o'clock
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's Dom Cummings.

He was shouting at me, um,

and very, very angry
and trying to intimidate me,

um, in an almost uncontrolled way.

Bernard is looking
really quite disconcerted,

while Dom says something
along the lines of,

"If you ever say something like
that to me 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."

INDISTINCT CHAT

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

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, um, you know,
should have much say in anything.

He seemed to not understand

or not want to understand
that, you know,

what was happening
at the ground level,

at the grassroots level, was 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, um, you 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 Leave.EU and Arron
and Andy understood better.

We encouraged Kate
to come and join Leave.EU.

We basically said,
"Yeah, leave it with us,

"we're going to build
the 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, "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

as he realised that this is
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 Nigel 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 are 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 Kate and I thought,

"Well, the most important thing -

"don't try 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,

you know, between people cheering.

We are finding that people
are coming out and saying,

"At last,
within the Labour movement,

"there is some kind of debate.

"We're fed up with the Europhiles
who've 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, um, Tory voters.

Kate turned to me and said,
"These are Labour supporters.

"These are not
Conservative supporters.

"These are people who feel like
they've been left behind,

"let down by the political class."

Nigel walks in like the Messiah,

with all these people clapping
and standing

and these Tories behind us going,
"What the...?"

You know, this is mental.

How the hell is Nigel Farage
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, too, 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 have nothing to do with me.

At Vote Leave's headquarters,
unhappiness with the leadership

of Dominic Cummings
could no longer be ignored.

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 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 says,

"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 pretences."

I said, "It's not working.
You've upset too many people."

Came to 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
have 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 handed Dominic
a draft contract,

which actually I've got here. Um,
and it's a contractual agreement,

which made him a strategic adviser
rather than the 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 goes, "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 me." 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 Department 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 Dominic asked me if I could,
uh, speak to a couple of people.

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

and I said, "Look, I 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 a role in this campaign,
then I'm not going to be playing,

"uh, any sort of prominent role
at all either."

Cummings' supporters had saved him.

I saw Dom that evening
after the attempted coup,

and I asked him
how he was doing,

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.

You couldn't get my chair up a bit?
There seems to be a kind of...

INDISTINCT CHAT

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?"

So I said to him, "Look,
I'm really sorry, but, you know,

"the way things are going, the way
my mind is 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, you know,
forever's a long time to be,

you know, fucked up by,
uh, you know,

the instruments of government

with all the, you know,
trained fucker-uppers.

I don't remember saying that but,
look, 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, 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 as a QC.

Is Boris at home? He's not here, no.
OK. I was hoping to persuade you

that you might not need
to stay around here, actually.

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 closer 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'd both been small. She's
basically a liberal soul, right?

She's not a foaming xenophobe.
The absolute opposite.

As a lawyer, I began to be
more and more aware of that process,

of what the court was doing.

And I did have
that conversation with Boris.

I was very struck when she said
that she, too,

was inclined to vote Leave.

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, um...

..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'd 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 ten 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
a 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 part.

"And David Cameron is going
to have to resign if we lose.

"Don't kid yourself
that 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 Union is that
laws were imposed on us

that we couldn't alter or change.

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

And I said, "Whatever your sort of
particular concerns

"about parliamentary sovereignty,
we are, you know,

"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 be 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, you 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 evening

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 lose it?"

Uh, and then, you know, being, um,

cast out as splitters and,
you know, whatever.

We started off,
I think, upstairs, um,

you know, chatting around. Then we
went downstairs to eat dinner.

Marina had cooked lamb
and while we were eating

and discussing the pros and cons
of our membership of the EU,

the phone rang.
It was Oliver Letwin,

who was David Cameron's
policy supremo.

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,

"Mm." 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
ever 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 EU counterparts,

news broke from London.

REPORTER:
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.

CAMERAS CLICK

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 Leave 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 going to be very different
from what we'd 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 will be able

to access Europe's
free trade, single market,

or if working people's jobs
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 shit, that 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
I parked up outside the house,

and the ministers came over
from Downing Street.

So I put The Great Escape on
and drove them over to Vote Leave.

I remember looking
in my rear view mirror

and thinking how slightly absurd
it was to see

four members of the cabinet crammed
into a car heading to Vote Leave.

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 careers personally.

Michael was perhaps
not quite his ebullient self.

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

I'm normally a relatively
ebullient person.

I was reflecting on
what a momentous decision this was.

Ladies and gentlemen, please join me
in welcoming Vote Leave...

CHEERING

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

to the campaign. 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 citizen,

and it was a real shock
cos these were,

you know, our colleagues,
our friends,

in some cases
close personal friends.

I think that was the first moment
we realised,

"Oh, 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 of hits you here.

Just one person
was left on the fence.

REPORTER: Comments, Mr Johnson?
CAMERAS CLICK

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 front of 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,

you know, "If you vote Leave,

"you'll be tendering your
resignation from the human race.

"You'll be joining," you know,

"bigots and xenophobes
incorporated."

So my spirit sinks, I go, "God."

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 Thame,

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 wrote about 1,000 words
or so, uh, 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,

um, 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, it never...

he was never
going to get a good deal,

uh, 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 you doing?"

And he said, "Well, why don't you
come to Thame and have lunch?"

Rachel turns up

and she's brought lasagne.

Very kind of her, I thought,
"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 hit 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
David 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 trucks."

And I was like, "Is that it?
Is that the best you've got?"

There was nothing in the article
for Remain 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 reread the column
for Remain 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.

You're a fraud, 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 to him,
"Look, we've had the shock factor.

"Jo Cox was assassinated."