Former British Prime Minister David Cameron has slammed the United Kingdom’s senior-most Indian origin Cabinet minister Priti Patel in his memoir ‘For The Record’.
In his memoir, Cameron also makes an attack on some of his former Conservative Party colleagues who he said shocked and betrayed him in their attacks on his then government.
Attacking Patel over her criticizing statements on his government’s immigration policies, Cameron said:
She used every announcement, interview, and speech to hammer the government on immigration, even though she was part of that government. I was stuck, though: unable to fire her, because that would make her a Brexit martyr.
Patel was an employment minister in Cameron’s Cabinet and also the Indian Diaspora Champion.
Cameron blames the entire Leave camp of triggering “cauldron of toxicity” with lies about the facts and figures over immigration and what the UK’s membership of the EU cost Britain.
He writes:
While we were saying membership of the EU was worth GBP 4,300 to each family, the Leave campaigners claimed Britain was spending GBP 350 million a week on it. On May 11 [2016] they unveiled their liveried battle bus, emblazoned with the words, ‘We send the EU £350 million a week. Let’s fund our NHS instead’.
It wasn’t true. As Boris rode the bus round the country, he left the truth at home. The bus was disingenuous, it was tenuous – but it was also ingenious. The fact that it was inaccurate actually helped the leave campaigners.
In his memoir, which releases next Thursday, Cameron says that he is truly sorry for the uncertainty and division that had followed the 2016 referendum. He also suggested a second Brexit referendum or a vote might be necessary.
Patel is currently serving in the Boris Johnson’s Cabinet UK home secretary. She was a prominent Brexiteer and member of the Leave campaign, which was led by Johnson and Cabinet minister Michael Gove.
During the referendum campaign, Patel made a series of speeches calling for a visa regime that did not favor the European Union over migrants from non-EU countries like India.
