ADVERTISEMENT

David Cameron Says He Doesn't Regret Holding Brexit Vote

David Cameron Says He Doesn't Regret Holding Brexit Vote

(Bloomberg) -- Former U.K. Prime Minster David Cameron says he doesn’t regret holding the Brexit vote in 2016, but still wishes the country had voted to remain in the European Union.

In his first major interview since resigning as prime minister after the June 2016 referendum, Cameron said he still thinks he made the right decision to ask the British public if they wanted to stay in the bloc.

“I don’t think you can belong to these organisations and see their powers grow, treaty after treaty, power after power going from Westminster to Brussels, never asking the people if they are happy being governed in that way -- but I haven’t changed my mind about the result of the referendum, I wish the vote had gone another way,” he said in the interview with CNN, which aired Wednesday.

The former prime minister, who has been largely silent since leaving government and resigning as a lawmaker in 2016, is in Washington this week to launch a report about how to help fragile countries become more stable. In the interview, he backed the decision by his successor, Theresa May, to hold military air strikes on Syria without consulting Parliament.

In 2013, he was defeated by Parliament in his effort to do the same and said he “deeply regrets” it. “I think I know why, a lot of people were so unhappy about what had happened in Iraq, and they were so bruised by that,” he said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Jessica Shankleman in London at jshankleman@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Flavia Krause-Jackson at fjackson@bloomberg.net, Robert Jameson

©2018 Bloomberg L.P.