I think the three threads here - quality of decision-making, overvaluing of party loyalty and character - are very hard to untangle.
May made one catastrophic decision - to call an election. She made a series of bad ones about EU Exit but I'd find it very difficult to make the case that anyone else leading the Tory party after the referendum would have done better. The only other person to have a crack at it - Johnson - did worse. I disagree that Cameron should have stayed; he would have had no credibility with anyone inside or outside the party and I don't believe he could have been effective.
Cameron could have averted the EU referendum result in a number of ways. He could have said that the decision is so momentous that it required a 55% majority. He could have required each of the four nations to have a majority vote - which would have been a phenomenal gesture to the Union - or he could have said that British citizens living in the EU can vote. He did none of these things, because he was so utterly convinced that he would win. I think that is a failure of character, and if the competition weren't Boris Johnson then I'd say it made him the worst character on your list.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2024-07-04 09:52 am (UTC)May made one catastrophic decision - to call an election. She made a series of bad ones about EU Exit but I'd find it very difficult to make the case that anyone else leading the Tory party after the referendum would have done better. The only other person to have a crack at it - Johnson - did worse. I disagree that Cameron should have stayed; he would have had no credibility with anyone inside or outside the party and I don't believe he could have been effective.
Cameron could have averted the EU referendum result in a number of ways. He could have said that the decision is so momentous that it required a 55% majority. He could have required each of the four nations to have a majority vote - which would have been a phenomenal gesture to the Union - or he could have said that British citizens living in the EU can vote. He did none of these things, because he was so utterly convinced that he would win. I think that is a failure of character, and if the competition weren't Boris Johnson then I'd say it made him the worst character on your list.