David Cameron on where Keir Starmer went wrong as prime minister
Former Conservative British prime minister David Cameron said Keir Starmer’s biggest mistake was not making a plan for the UK after years of post-Brexit turmoil.
Speaking to this masthead’s Jacqueline Maley for the McKinnon Award on Wednesday night, Cameron called for more bipartisanship among centrist parties to combat the rising tide of populism, while denying that Britain had become ungovernable after losing its sixth prime minister in a decade.
“I think what Keir Starmer has shown is that if you don’t use your time in opposition to think through your plans in detail, then you are less likely to be successful when you become prime minister,” said Cameron, looking hopeful to the awards in Canberra from London.
“He is a well-intentioned, hard-working, honest man, but he came to power without a plan and without warning anyone about what was needed,” he said.
“Politics and leadership is about how you communicate consistently and get people on your side, and I think we have lost prime ministers recently because of the failure to do that.”
Speaking on the tenth anniversary of his resignation following the Brexit referendum in which Britain voted to leave the European Union, the Conservative Party member said traditional government parties must achieve material results to combat the populist surge seen in Europe, the US and Australia.
“I think it’s sort of a failure of liberal democracy to deal with some of the problems that give rise to populism,” Cameron said.
“There’s a way we can act as centre-left or centre-right liberal democratic politicians… because if we continue to fail to achieve these long-term things, then we’re making room for populists to exploit that.”
He said Australia did not face the same illegal immigration problem as Britain, but growing economic insecurity and division on social media had sparked outrage around the world.
“I think a lot of these populist leaders like to be attacked, so that’s not always the right approach,” he said.
“He should try to argue that this populism doesn’t come from nowhere, it comes from the insecurities that our people feel, and it’s not the centre-right and centre-left parties dealing with it, pushing it aside, and that it’s all the fault of individual politicians, whether it’s Donald Trump or Nigel Farage or whoever. We have to say no, these are real things, we have to deal with them.”
Cameron called on centrist parties to find a way to cooperate against political division.
“In a liberal democracy, if you can’t get cross-party working, some consistency, if you can’t always undo your predecessors’ plans, it’s harder,” he said.
“Finding ways to actually see the good in what your competitors are doing, rather than always attacking them… that will help.”
This article is part of a content partnership between. reporter, Age and McKinnon, an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization focused on the importance of democracy and good government.
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Brittany Busch is the federal politics correspondent for The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via email.
