British Prime Minister David Cameron said he would resign, but not immediately; according to him, the new prime minister of the country should be appointed before the beginning of October. He made such a statement on Friday after it became known about the victory in the referendum of supporters of Britain's exit from the European Union.

“I think it would be wrong for me to try to be the captain leading my country to the next destination,” Cameron said. According to the prime minister, the UK needs "fresh leadership," RIA Novosti reports.

Cameron also congratulated all those who supported the exit of Britain from the EU.

“I will be attending the Council of Europe meeting next week to explain the decision made by the British people and my decision (to resign). The British people have made a choice and should be respected,” Cameron said, adding that there is no doubt about the outcome of the referendum.

“It's not just about the future of one particular politician, the British people have made a very clear decision to take a different path. And so I believe that the country needs fresh leadership to lead it in this direction. I will do everything in my power as Prime Minister to stabilize the course (of the country) for the next few months. But I do not think that I should be the captain who will lead the ship on a new course, ”said Cameron.

“I believe that a new candidate should be selected at the Conservative Party conference in October,” Cameron added.

“Now we need to prepare for negotiations with the EU, this will require the full involvement of the governments of Scotland, Northern Ireland and other regions of the country,” Cameron said.

Cameron said he would hold a special government meeting on Monday after Britain voted to leave the EU. "The cabinet meeting will be held on Monday," the prime minister said.

"I also spoke to the Queen this morning to brief her on the steps I am taking," the British prime minister added.

“I would like to reassure markets and investors alike that the UK economy is fundamentally strong,” Cameron said. “I also assure British people who live in other EU countries and residents of other EU countries living in Britain that there will be no immediate change in their circumstances,” he added.

“At first, there will be no change in how people travel, and in how goods move and how services are provided,” the prime minister said.

As British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said earlier on Friday, Cameron made it clear that he would fulfill the will of the people in any outcome of the referendum on leaving the European Union.

Supporters of Britain's exit from the European Union in Thursday's referendum; as evidenced by the final results published on the basis of the processing of ballots from all 382 polling stations, 52% of the British (17.41 million people) voted in favor of terminating the membership of the United Kingdom in the EU, 48% (16.14 million people) were in favor of continuing European integration.

The referendum is not legally binding, meaning that the government and prime minister have the right to ignore its results. However, according to experts, David Cameron himself initiated the referendum, he is unlikely to be able to ignore its results. Quite a few political scientists predict the Prime Minister's resignation, despite his previous assurances that he will remain in his post in any case. Cameron soon to the citizens of the country.

The turnout in the referendum was 72.1%. This is reportedly the highest voter turnout since 1997, when the country held general elections amid expectations of great change.

Meanwhile, according to Brexit campaign leader and Eurosceptic Matthew Elliot, Britain has been in the European Union for many months or even several years.

According to the President of the European Parliament Martin Schulz, the developments in the financial markets show that the path that the UK has set foot on will be difficult, negotiations on Britain's exit from the EU.

With the dramatic results of the referendum, which will have far-reaching implications for the future of the country, Britain has lost an outstanding leader, a talented politician and a true democrat. David Cameron, who was elected prime minister in 2010 and won again last year, announced on Friday that he would step down before October of this year.

Context

Putin considers Brexit a victory

Jyllands-Posten 26.06.2016

EU without Britain and Putin

Bloomberg 26.06.2016

More than 1 million people demanded a second referendum in Britain

BBC Russian service 06/25/2016

4 consequences of Brexit for Russia

Deutsche Welle 25.06.2016

The Conservative Party will be forced to choose a new leader who must meet the high standard set by Cameron. It will be difficult for conservatives to find a replacement for him. Today, there is no politician among the parliamentarians from the ruling party who has such a rhetorical gift, who knows how to feel people. Cameron was equally able to carry on a dialogue with both parliamentary rivals and ordinary citizens. Cameron was a brilliant administrator and at the same time a talented "showman". The latter is an equally important quality for a politician who must be able to interact with the media and speak to the public. And most importantly: Cameron is a true Democrat.

Last Friday, David Cameron delivered the most important speech of his career at Downing Street. “We have asked the people to decide whether to stay in the European Union or leave it,” the British prime minister said. We have made our position clear enough. The people had their say. Now the government is obliged to fulfill his will. And if that means I have to leave, I'll leave."

It was a painful decision. Cameron's wife, who was next to him, did not hide her tears. Cameron cannot lead the UK's exit from the European Union. The Conservatives need to choose an alternative leader who supported the country's exit from the EU. Under the leadership of the new head of the party, the conservatives will be able to realize the will of the people, expressed through a referendum.

Cameron's resignation will not bring him honors and glory. In the very first hours after the announcement of his departure, the British media began to write about Cameron as a failed prime minister. He was compared to Chamberlain, who failed in negotiations with Hitler in 1940.

There is no doubt that the referendum and Cameron's resignation will go down in history as a tragic event. If the process of Britain's exit from the European Union is successful in the long run, Cameron will be associated with opposition to this decision. If London's exit from the EU has negative consequences, Cameron will be remembered as the prime minister who pushed the British to this senseless step. He may also go down in history as the head of government that caused Scotland to leave the UK.

And yet Cameron did the right thing. By deciding to hold a referendum, he hoped in this way to strengthen his party in order to more effectively manage the cabinet. But he also sought to let the people decide their own fate - to stay in the European Union or go on their own path. Cameron has made it clear that he supports the UK being in the EU. He knew that his political future depended on the results of the referendum, that if he lost, he would be forced to resign.

The materials of InoSMI contain only assessments of foreign media and do not reflect the position of the editors of InoSMI.

The UK voted to leave the European Union. The results of the historic referendum were summed up in the country. 17.5 million Britons - almost 52% of those who came to the polls - want to live apart from the EU. British Prime Minister David Cameron, who advocated maintaining the country's membership in the EU, announced his intention to resign.

52% of the referendum participants voted for leaving the united Europe. The turnout was more than 70 percent, that is, there is not the slightest doubt about the legitimacy of this expression of will, he forced even those who usually ignore elections to come to the polls, reports .

For David Cameron, who once gave the green light to the vote, this result was a signal that he had drastically miscalculated. The prime minister considered it necessary to stop his political career, since his views - Cameron campaigned for a united Europe - did not coincide with the opinion of the majority. On Friday, the prime minister announced his imminent resignation.

The result of the referendum took political elites by surprise. Everyone understood that the gap between the camps was minimal, but the polls before the vote and the first results of the count gave an advantage to the supporters of Europe.

Newspapers have already typed up editorials announcing that the country has remained in the EU, and one of the leaders of the Brexit campaign, Nigel Farage, even managed to admit defeat. But later in the night, the camp pulled ahead for the exit, and around four in the morning everything finally changed: it became clear that the ratio would not change and Britain said “no” to the European Union.

"I hope that this victory will put an end to the whole failed project and lead us to a Europe of sovereign nations trading and cooperating with each other. Let's get rid of the Brussels flag, the Brussels anthem and everything that went wrong. May June 23rd go down in history as our independence day!" Farage said.

The United Kingdom has also shown that its component parts have very different attitudes towards Europe. England and Wales chose a way out. Northern Ireland and Scotland to stay in Europe, with the Scots by a wide margin, 62% for the EU. There has already been talk that Edinburgh will again seek independence from London and the chances are high that the island will be divided by the border.

Discussions have also begun about whether there will be a border between Northern Ireland, which is a member of the EU, and the Republic of Ireland - the appearance of roadblocks will not benefit only the recently calmed conflict.

Markets have already reacted with a sharp fall in the pound, the British currency has reached its lowest value against the dollar since 1985 and this is just the beginning: the business day in the City has just begun and turmoil in the financial market is to be expected.

For most voters, it was not the economy that decided everything, but immigration - it was about it that there was the most fierce debate before the vote and the most serious fears of the British working class were connected with the newcomers. Now the question arises about the present and future of the millions of EU residents who can still live and work safely on the island, but soon this will begin to change.

As you know, no one has left the European Union before, and the so-called "50th article" of the Lisbon Treaty has never been applied. She says that every member of the EU has the right to withdraw and from the moment Brussels is officially notified, two years are allotted for breaking all agreements.

It is worth noting that the referendum was formally consultative, that is, this does not mean that Britain ceased to be a member of the EU on June 24, but the government promised to fulfill the will of the people, which means that the formal procedures for London's exit from united Europe will be launched in the near future.

Andrey Baranov, "TV Center".

The main opponent of Brexit, Prime Minister David Cameron announced his resignation. RBC recalled his path to power, which ended in a conflict in the Conservative Party, which became one of the main reasons for the protest vote.

David Cameron. Photo: Reuters

The youngest prime minister in two hundred years, David Cameron, during the struggle in the 2000s, was called by the press a model not only of a progressive conservative, but also of a populist. In the early 2010s, after Cameron became prime minister and promised voters to hold a referendum on EU membership, no one could have thought that the vote would put an end to his brilliant career. But on June 23, the country voted for Brexit, and Cameron, contrary to his previous statements, announced his decision to resign. "I fought against the exit with all my heart, but the British chose a different path", - the prime minister told reporters on the threshold of the residence on Downing Street.

Team from Notting Hill

David William Duncan Cameron was born in 1966 in London as the third child of four children. Cameron is a descendant of the English King William IV through his illegitimate daughter and a distant relative of Queen Elizabeth II. The prime minister's father, Ian Cameron, was disabled: he was born with deformed legs, which later had to be amputated, and was blind in one eye. Despite this, Cameron Sr. went on to a successful career as an investment manager. Cameron's mother worked as a justice of the peace.

David spent the first years of his life in London, then the family moved to the former rectory near the town of Newbury in Berkshire. At the age of seven, David entered Heatherdown, a prestigious private preparatory school for boys, which is called the main supplier of students for the prestigious Eton College. After school, Cameron also ended up in Eton, the forge of cadres of the ruling elite: before him, this college graduated 18 more British prime ministers. Cameron graduated from the University of Oxford in 1988 with a bachelor's degree in an interdisciplinary course in politics, philosophy and economics.

Cameron got his first experience of political work back in 1984, between Eton and Oxford, having settled for three months at the headquarters of Tim Rathbone, a member of parliament from the Conservative Party. After that, David spent three months in Hong Kong, where he worked as a shipping agent for Jardine Matheson. In the same year, Cameron visited the Soviet Union. He later told the BBC that during this trip to Yalta, two plainclothes KGB agents tried to recruit him.

While studying at Oxford, Cameron was not involved in politics. As Rathbone explained at the time, quoted by the BBC, he "wanted to enjoy life." While studying at the university, Cameron was a member of the Bullingdon student club (from the word bully - a bully), whose members were known for their daring antics and heavy drinking. Nevertheless, one of Cameron's teachers, Professor Vernon Bogdanor, called him one of the brightest students.

After graduating from university, Cameron got a job in the research department of the Conservative Party, where he worked for several years. There he worked in the team of future Home Secretary David Davis, who prepared speeches for party leader John Major. The group was called, among other things, a "gang of scoundrels", but the name "team from Notting Hill" was firmly attached to them, after the name of the area where most of the members of the group lived. Subsequently, on the basis of this team, Cameron will form his own government: it included the current Chancellor of the Exchequer (Minister of the Treasury) George Osborne, Minister of Justice Michael Gove, Minister of Culture Ed Vaizey, Minister for Enterprise Nicholas Bowles, head of the Prime Minister's secretariat Edward Llewelyn. The team was credited with developing the blueprint for the anti-Labor tax PR campaign that was one of the keys to the surprise victory of the Conservatives, led by John Major, in the 1992 parliamentary elections.

Photo: Reuters

New Conservative

In 1992, Cameron was appointed political adviser to the Chancellor of the Exchequer in Major's government, Norman Lamont. In this post, he caught the “black Wednesday” - the collapse of the pound on September 16, as a result of which the UK had to increase the interest rate, devalue the pound, exit the European monetary system and let the pound float freely. In the early 1990s, Cameron wanted to become an MP, but decided to gain experience outside of politics first. For seven years he worked as director of corporate communications for the British media group Carlton Communications. At the same time, in 1994 and 1997, he tried to participate in parliamentary elections, but both times he was unsuccessful.

Cameron managed to get a deputy mandate in the House of Commons in 2001 - from the Whitney district of Oxfordshire, when Sean Woodward, who occupied this place, moved to the Laborites. From that moment began the rapid ascent of Cameron on the political ladder. At first he was a member of the parliamentary committee on home affairs, and then received the post of Minister of Education in the shadow government of the Conservatives (then Labor was in power, led by Tony Blair).

Cameron played a key role in writing the Party's 2005 election manifesto. Then he put forward his candidacy for the post of party leader. At the time, his chances of winning seemed slim: his competitors included his former patron David Davies, former shadow health secretary, party co-chairman Liam Fox, and veteran party member Kenneth Clark since the 1970s. The victory went to Cameron thanks to the image of the "new conservative" he built - young, modern, with liberal views, focused on the social agenda. At the Party Congress, he delivered an expressive speech without papers. It later became his signature style.

As the leader of the party, Cameron in the next five years enlisted significant support from voters against the backdrop of the fall of Labor's rating: he promoted cooperation with the European Union, was actively involved in education, the environment, the protection of the rights of women, migrants and sexual minorities. The media called him a populist: in the House of Commons, Cameron spoke on all sensitive issues. First, in 2003, for the outbreak of the war in Iraq, and then, in 2006, for investigating the circumstances of its outbreak. He voted against a fox-hunting ban, against Labor's proposed anti-terrorism laws, for a fully elected House of Lords and against a smoking ban.

London, 2010 Photo: Reuters

Dangerous referendum

Cameron took over as prime minister in 2010, at the age of 43, after the Conservatives won parliamentary elections for the first time since 1992. There has not been such a young prime minister in Great Britain since 1812. However, the advantage of the conservatives was only 20 seats, so Cameron had to form a coalition government for the first time since the Second World War, in which the liberal democrats became partners of the conservatives.

By this time, the issue of EU membership was already one of the most discussed in British society. The EU was considered a necessary evil in the country back in the 1970s, when the UK joined the union to avoid economic stagnation. Cameron was the main proponent of maintaining EU membership, but advocated greater autonomy for the UK within the EU and against dependence on the political decisions of the EU.

In January 2013, Cameron delivered a keynote speech in which he again stressed that he remained a supporter of keeping Britain in the European Union, but promised, if he won the next elections in 2015, to hold a national referendum on this issue and, in parallel, seek to expand the rights of the country in the EU. Having won the elections and having consolidated the advantage of the conservatives in parliament, the prime minister kept his word. In November 2015, he sent European Council President Donald Tusk a memorandum containing demands that, if not met, the UK threatened to leave the European Union.

Among the demands were a renunciation of the obligation to participate in building a closer political union, guarantees of financial non-participation in support of the euro, and additional restrictions on the entry of migrants from other EU countries. “We want to protect our country from further political integration with the EU and strengthen the power of our national parliament. Ever since we joined the EU [in the 1970s], Europe has been on the path to becoming a political union. We never wanted this, - Cameron said after the meeting of the EU Council on February 19, 2016. - I don't love Brussels, I love Britain. My job is to do everything in my power to protect our interests.".

As a result, an agreement was reached. The UK gained the right to interpret the political decisions of the EU in its own way and achieved independence for its financial institutions. In addition, for seven years, from 2017 to 2023, the British government received the right not to pay social benefits to migrant workers from other European countries.

At the same time, it was agreed that the agreement would enter into force only if the UK notifies the EU Council of its decision to remain in the European Union. This could happen only after the results of the referendum.

Photo: Reuters

The collapse of hopes

Cameron believed that reaching an agreement with the EU Council would incline society to the side of retaining membership in the European Union. He was going to use it as a factor in pressure on the EU and to attract new supporters. But the situation got out of control: many Brexit supporters turned out to be even among the members of his party. One of the leaders of the campaign for leaving the EU was a friend of Cameron's youth, Justice Minister Michael Gove. At the height of the campaign, Gove claimed that the government had spent £9.3 million ($13 million) of taxpayer money on campaign pamphlets, which it "was not entitled to." In total, about 27 million brochures were printed. The Euroskeptic group Get Britain Out has launched a petition to stop the government campaign to agitate the population for the preservation of EU membership. An online petition on the government website was signed by more than 100,000 people.

Last March, one of the treasurers and main sponsors of the Conservative Party, billionaire Peter Cruddas, was at the center of the scandal: as the Sunday Times wrote, he offered his assistance in organizing secret meetings with Cameron and British Finance Minister George Osborne, who remained an opponent of Brexit and in obtaining insider information, and also offered the opportunity to influence public policy in exchange for donations to the party. On the day of publication, Cruddas resigned from the Treasury post.

In early April 2016, Cameron himself was at the center of a scandal: his name appeared in the Panama Archives, and he himself was suspected of tax evasion. On offshore, he reported to the British Parliament.

The campaign was greatly influenced by the position of one of the most popular politicians of the Conservative Party, the eccentric former Mayor of London Boris Johnson, who joined the Brexit supporters. At the end of May, he said that "every year, only thanks to migration from EU countries, we add to Britain the population of an entire Oxford." Johnson accused Cameron of "giving away control of the immigration and refugee system forever" and that the system "has gotten out of hand." As the Times wrote, as a result of the influx of migrants, the UK population in 2015 exceeded 65 million for the first time, with almost 40% of migrants settling in London.

Back in early March, Cameron said that he would not resign if the British decided to leave the union. "No," he answered shortly in Parliament to a question from Labor Party spokesman Richard Burgon. By April, Cameron's approval rating had fallen to 30%, the lowest since his appointment as prime minister.

Brexit is Cameron's political failure, the culprit of which is largely himself, the British Independent newspaper assessed the results of the campaign. As head of government, Cameron has made controversial and sometimes risky decisions before. Unlike his predecessors, he supported holding a referendum on Scottish independence. Contrary to the skepticism of British politicians, Cameron hoped that in this way he would enlist the support of the majority and this would save the country from a possible recurrence of this problem for many years. Then he won - in the fall of 2014, more than half of the population voted for the preservation of Scotland as part of the UK.

“During this campaign, I fought in the only way I knew how - directly and passionately saying what I think and feel - with my head, heart and soul. I didn't hide anything- Cameron said in a speech to reporters on the afternoon of June 24, when the outcome of the Brexit referendum was already clear. - But the British people have made a very clear decision to go the other way, and the country needs new political leadership to take it in that direction.”

The UK will receive a new prime minister after Cameron's resignation in October 2016. Boris Johnson and Michael Gove are among the top candidates for the post.

If not Cameron, then who?

David Cameron's resignation should occur before October 2016, when the annual conference of the Conservative Party takes place. The new prime minister will have to send a request to leave the European Union, Cameron confirmed.

To find a successor to Cameron, the Conservative Party, which has a majority in Parliament, must choose a new leader. According to the procedure, if there are several candidates, members of parliament from the party will vote for each candidate until only two candidates remain, of which a new leader will be elected by a general party vote (the party has about 150 thousand members in total). He will become prime minister.

British media call Boris Johnson the favorite of the race. Other potential contenders include Michael Gove, George Osborne and Home Secretary Theresa May. The latest major poll on the topic "Who would you support as the new leader of the Conservative Party?" conducted by sociological service YouGov in February 2016. Then the majority of respondents (43%) supported Johnson, another 22% supported Osborne.

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