David Cameron responds to accusations he "ran away" after his post-referendum resignation

17 September 2020, 20:01 | Updated: 17 September 2020, 20:22

David Cameron opens up about his post-referendum resignation

David Cameron responds to accusations he "ran away" after his swift resignation following the Brexit referendum in an interview with LBC's Iain Dale.

Iain Dale observed that David Cameron's resignation was "very abrupt" after the Brexit referendum and there was no lengthy leadership contest to enable him to come to terms with the situation.

"Did you struggle mentally at all?" Iain asked him.

Mr Cameron responded: "I don't think I struggled too much... I thought I'd be in Downing Street for a few months and able to explain why it was necessary to have a new Prime Minister and why I thought it I should be leaving."

He said the sudden collapse of the leadership contest meant "that gave people the impression that I was rushing out the door and that's the last thing I wanted to do."

He was kept busy by his young children, a wife who had launched a fashion business, and aims to write a book.

Mr Cameron told Iain he still wants to work on causes he finds important, particularly tackling the social issues of Alzheimer's.

When Iain announced he would be interviewing Mr Cameron, he said, "a lot of people said what are you interviewing him for, he ran away."

"Because the leadership election collapsed, I can see why people thought that it looked like that. It was absolutely not my intention," Mr Cameron said.

"I genuinely believed that because I'd thrown myself in to one side of the referendum so vigorously and then lost, that the country needed a new Prime Minister. I thought that would be taken as sensible and the right approach.

"I hated resigning, I didn't want to leave the job I loved," he said.

Listen to the full interview on Iain Dale’s Whole Show podcast.