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The Spectator's Notes

Why did Cameron call a referendum if he thought it could start a war?

Also in The Spectator’s Notes: why clamping down on tax havens would be seen as gross interference; Jeremy Thorpe; the BBC and North Korea; Sats

14 May 2016

9:00 AM

14 May 2016

9:00 AM

One of the many problems with David Cameron’s threat that leaving the European Union could plunge us into war is that it sits so strangely with how he spoke about the EU before he called a referendum. In those days, he was studiedly cool about the union: he had no sentimental attachment to it, he told us, just a pragmatic weighing of the advantages for Britain, depending on what he could obtain.

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