David Cameron: The man that broke Britain?

In 2005, David Cameron was elected Conservative Party leader and five years later would become Prime Minister, defeating Gordon Brown. Before the election, he was seen as a man of integrity and even Simon Cowell backed him. Little did they know of what damage he and his right-hand man George Osborne would do to the country, to which is still having to come to terms with now.

First of all, there was the long age of austerity, something that people, even Tory voters, did not vote for and wasn't in the manifesto. Dave claimed that severe austerity measures were needed in light of the financial crisis years earlier (and with people blinding pointing the finger at Gordon Brown for it, despite it being a worldwide crisis then), and to bring down the large deficit. In turn, we had large scale events such as the Olympics and the Diamond Jubilee affected and had also affected Britain's response to COVID-19 years later, something that George denied.

Secondly, in 2011, was the year that the SNP won an unprecedented majority in the Scottish Parliament election and gave them a mandate to ask the constitutional question of where Scotland should break away or stay with its British neighbours, better known as "indyref". Now, what had Dave got to do with it, you may ask? He appeased Salmond and his lot for it to happen three years later, followed by the signing of the Edinburgh Agreement in 2012. Closer to the date of said referendum, there was the nastiness in the air and even after it, where people democractically said "No" with a unified voice, Scotland had not been the same since and he is to blame, but luckly the wounds that he helped inflict have now since healed from this year's election north of the border. The days of stupid little Bravehearts trying to silent dissenting voices and flaming people online because of him are now thankfully a thing of the past (and I will write a thread on indyref next month).

And finally, in 2016, was Brexit, another thing that he let happen when he pushed out a referendum to reassess Britain's status in the EU and, believe it or not, was actually in the Tory manifesto ahead of the 2015 election, and if memory serves me UKIP, especially under Nigel Farage at the time, had egged him on about it especially when that party won the most British seats in the European election. When the country voted to leave the EU after over thirty years, who would've thought that it'd cause Dave to throw down the gauntlet? Again, like the outcome of the first referendum and what happened after it, it was his own fault.

So in summary, there are three major things that he is responsible for Britain's problems today: austerity, the Scottish independence referendum and Brexit. By this, he's basically done more damage than what Maggie Thatcher had done in her eleven years in power although that opinion is subjective, I know. Given that he is credited for being the catalyst of Britain's struggles on the world stage, Sunak really had the gall to appoint him as Foreign Secretary and of course people were outraged by that.

What do you think? Do you believe he had indeed broke the country both domestically and internationally? Or, do you believe the actions he made whilst in power were great missteps taken?

Discuss.

Although the original post may be seen as original research, I think it's probably wise for me to provide appropriate sources backing my claims:

• https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/david-cameron-rise-and-fall-public-relations-prime-minister/
  
• https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/06/24/david-cameron-was-a-historic-and-disastrous-failure/
  
• https://scholar.stjohns.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1083&context=jga ("What was David Cameron thinking? Thoughts of a British historian")
  
• https://journals.openedition.org/osb/5444 (""The EU Referendum, Brexit and the UK's 'culture war'")
  
• https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13501763.2020.1722203 ("Political, process and programme failures in the Brexit fiasco")
  

(The last three are academic articles on these issues)

I would recommend that people read the first academic source from Tímea Varga, where her views and opinions on the matter are spot-on to what I had long assumed about how Dave did in the six years of his leadership.