BREXIT is a story of many big players and a few key actors. Here’s our rundown of some of the main characters and where they are five years after the 2016 referendum.
1) DAVID Cameron: He called the Brexit referendum in the confidence that it would return a Remain vote and bolster his position. He’d promised it in 2013, saying he’d hold it if the 2015 general election went his way.
Ex-European Council President Donald Tusk later said Cameron had told him he expected the LibDems to block the vote. But they didn’t and Cameron announced his resignation a few hours after the Leave result was confirmed. He most recently triggered an investigation into lobbying following revelations about his role in the Greensill Capital scandal.
2) NIGEL Farage: The Trump fan resigned as Ukip leader two weeks after the vote, saying his “political ambition has been achieved”. He was back shortly after before leaving the party altogether, founding the Brexit Party and denouncing his old outfit as a home for the far-right.
A rebrand to Reform UK followed after they failed to win a single seat in the 2019 general election. If you want to hear from him yourself, you can buy a video message for £75. Last year some jokesters used prank names to do just that.
3) DOMINIC Cummings: Now getting at the Government in every way he can, Boris Johnson’s former right-hand-man was a Brexit architect before entering No 10. As campaign director of Vote Leave, Cummings established the messaging used by Brexiteers. An ex-special adviser to Michael Gove, he wooed his former boss and Johnson to the cause and he created that rallying bus ad promising £350 million per week for the NHS after a Leave vote. He’s since been the subject of a Covid scandal in which he claimed to have driven about with his kids to check his eyesight.
4) BORIS Johnson: As a journalist, Johnson undermined the EU through headlines about condom sizes and banana shapes. The ex-London mayor used a newspaper column to announce his shift to Leave but denied that was related to any personal political ambitions. He was amongst the MPs who made the going tough for Cameron’s successor, Theresa May, and few were surprised when he ran to replace her. He’s now under attack himself from his old pal Cummings, who has been leaking their once-private messages.
5) GISELA Stuart: THE non-affiliated peer served in Blair’s government before chairing Vote Leave and is now an advisor to the Prime Minister. Regularly in the news in the run up to the vote as a Brexiteer voice, she was made a non-executive board member of the Cabinet Office in May 2020 tasked with setting government priorities over the coronavirus pandemic, preparing for the end of the EU exit transition period and “strengthening the integrity of the Union”.
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