David Cameron told President Obama to say Brexit Britain would go to the ‘back of the queue’
2 min read
David Cameron personally asked Barack Obama to declare that Britain would go to "the back of the queue" in trade talks if it voted to quit the EU, a former White House adviser has said.
Ben Rhodes, who was Deputy National Security Advisor in the Obama administration, said the former Prime Minister made the request in the run-up to the 2016 referendum.
He said the remarks were meant to "help the Remain campaign", but it ended up backfiring and Leave eventually triumphed.
Speaking at a press conference during a visit to the UK in April, 2016, President Obama said: “The UK is going to be in the back of the queue – not because we don’t have a special relationship but because, given the heavy lift on any trade agreement, us having access to a big market with a lot of countries rather than having to do piecemeal trade agreements is hugely efficient."
David Cameron urged voters to heed the comments - but has always denied that he put the president up to it.
But speaking on the Radio 4 Today programme, Mr Rhodes said: "We had come here to help the Remain campaign and we had a meeting with David Cameron and his team and we were all kind of in violent agreement to the negative consequences of Brexit..
“In talking about the press conference that they were going to hold together, Cameron and Obama, we were discussing the arguments for the campaign and some of the arguments were that the United States could negotiate its free trade agreement with the UK quickly.”
“We were all agreeing that that was unlikely to happen.
“As Obama was saying that, someone of the British side said ‘yes, we’d end up being at the back of the queue’. Everyone kind of laughed and Obama said ‘that’s exactly right’.
“Then he was asked, well it would be good if you could repeat that point in the press conference. Of course he did.”
When asked if David Cameron made the request personally, Mr Rhodes said: “Yes”.
The US President insisted at the time that the referendum decision was “for the people of the United Kingdom”, insisting that he was not trying to “fix any votes” but his intervention was widely regarded as a major boost for the Remain campaign.
PoliticsHome Newsletters
PoliticsHome provides the most comprehensive coverage of UK politics anywhere on the web, offering high quality original reporting and analysis: Subscribe
