Cameron's 2015 election win had very little to do with his manifesto promise to hold a Brexit referendum and almost everything to do with the opposition and circumstance. Cameron was up against Miliband and Clegg. The former was viewed by the electorate as being too radical and was anything but a polished public performer. Clegg had become almost indistinguishable from Cameron; therefore 1) Tories and undecideds voted for the real thing rather than the clone and 2) traditional Liberals/ LibDems were so completely disenchanted with Clegg that they didn't vote or switched allegiance to the Tories. Throw in the fact that Cameron appeared personable, was a very polished political and public performer , and the eventual outcome shouldn't have been that much of a surprise. Imo the Tories would have won a majority without promising a referendum. The decision to do so obviously ultimately cost Cameron his premiership and the country much more. The idea that the UK having access to the Single Market (while not allowing the free movement of EU nationals into the UK); remaining in the EU Customs Union (while at the same time being allowed to negotiate bilateral trade deals) and at the same time not being obliged to either 1) pay into the EU budget or 2) adopt EU regulation was not considered to be beneficial to the EU by the Commission. This unsurprising news seemed to come as shock to the UK government as - which quickly became apparent - there was no 'Plan B'. The idea that the EU were willing to consider any proposal that the UK put forward (Norway model, Canada+, EEA, etc) BUT that it would come at a price was met by mute horror by the UK side. And so we ended up where we did and - despite a few improvements negotiated by Sunak and Starmer - pretty much where we still are. A poor deal dictated by the EU and where any subsequent and significant improvement to will come with a much larger price tag than if we had remained as part of the bloc. Oh, those sunny uplands! As Barnier said, "There are no winners with Brexit", however, we were lucky that 'they need us more than we need them'🤦(sarcasm in case anyone had any doubts).
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