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A former Europe Minister in the UK has ridiculed the appointment of former British PM David Cameron as the country’s new foreign secretary as an “odd gimmick.”
Dr Denis MacShane, a former Europe Minister under Tony Blair, told EU Political Report: “David Cameron is known globally as the politician who kneeled before Nigel Farage and gave him the populist plebiscite guaranteed to produce the rupture with European allies and partners. His nickname already in Westminster is Lord Brexit.”
“He is forever associated with the Isolationist project of Brexit.”
David Cameron returns to the cabinet table for the first time in more than seven years on after his recall to government.
Lord Cameron as he is now known after his appointment to the House of Lords on Monday, had been out of Parliament since he stood down as prime minister in 2016.
His return to politics on Monday came out of the blue and Cameron is the first former prime minister to return to government since the 1970s.
UK PM Rishi Sunak will meet his new cabinet after a dramatic overhaul saw the former prime minister return to frontline politics.
He replaces James Cleverly, who was moved to be home secretary to take over from Suella Braverman. She was sacked following her criticism of the Metropolitan Police.
MacShane, a former government minister added, “In 2009 he took the Conservative Party out of the centre right federation the European Peoples Party of mainstream European Conservative political parties.”
Speaking on Tuesday, he noted, “Most of the leaders he worked with have retired except his friend Benjamin Netanyahu but British public opinion is very concerned about the brutality of Netanyahu’s response and death toll on women and children. Cameron was also an uncritical booster of the Chinese strong man Xi Jin Ping.”
The Labour politician added, “He will not be answerable to MPs at a time when a U.K. foreign secretary has to answer questions on the problems on the global stage.”
He said, “It is an odd gimmick appointment.”
“Cameron voted for intervention in Iraq and then backed uprisings in Libya and Syria resulting to two failed states that have opened the way to mass immigration into Britain and Europe
“It is difficult to see him as a vote winner as so many of Britain’s problems in addition to Brexit arise from right-wing austerity.”
He went on, “Ideologically, Cameron imposed austerity on Britain after 2010 including 20,000 police taken off the streets, cuts in health care funding, a stop to social housing building and students having to pay big increases in fees to go to university. He is a nice man in contrast to the nasty politicians Sunak had to fire, like Suella Braverman or Dominic Raab, but he made no impact on world affairs as prime minister and his legacy in history is conceding a referendum to Nigel Farage and anti Europeans which has damaged and demoralised Britain and continues to weaken the economy and civil society.”
Further comment came from respected political commentator Simon Jenkins who said, “If the only figure fit to be foreign secretary was not a member of either house of parliament, then you know the Tories are in deep trouble.”
