The architect of Brexit: Who is David Cameron?

The prime minister, who led the country to a referendum on leaving the European Union in 2016, pursued a policy of keeping London together.

He resigned from his post as prime minister after the ballot box voted 52 percent against the EU, 48 percent to 52 percent.

Life story

His full name is David William Donald Cameron. He was born in the Berkshire region of London on October 9, 1966, as the third child of a family of four children, and they moved to Newbury, Berkshire, at the age of 3.

David William Donald Cameron, Baron Cameron of Chipping Norton, PC (born 9 October 1966), is a British politician who has served as Foreign Secretary since 2023. He previously served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2010 to 2016, as Leader of the Conservative Party from 2005 to 2016, and as Leader of the Opposition from 2005 to 2010, while serving as Member of Parliament (MP) for Witney from 2001 to 2016. He identifies as a one-nation conservative and has been associated with both economically liberal and socially liberal policies.

He grew up in a wealthy and well-connected family. His father, stockbroker Ian Donald Cameron, never considered himself disabled, even though his legs were amputated from birth and he later became blind in one eye. Cameron's mother, Mary Fleur, was a justice of the peace for 30 years.

He is also a distant relative of the Queen, as his lineage goes back to Elizabeth Hay, Countess of Erroll, the illegitimate daughter of Queen Victoria's uncle, William the Fourth.

After completing his secondary education at Eton College, Cameron studied Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at Oxford University. Before starting his university education, he worked for Conservative MP Tim Rathbone for a year. Cameron also worked in a shipping company in Hong Kong for three months and toured Soviet Russia and Eastern Europe.

After graduation, he worked in the Research Department of the Conservative Party between 1988 and 1993. Later, he worked as a special advisor at the Ministry of Finance. In the elections held in 2001, he was elected as Witney region MP from the Conservative Party and stepped into parliament for the first time.

He was a member of the House of Commons Social Affairs Committee. In June 2003, he was appointed minister of education in the shadow government. In December of the same year, he was elected Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party. After the 2005 elections, he became the minister of education in the shadow government. On December 6, 2005, he was elected as the party chairman, which became vacant following the resignation of Michael Howard, with a large majority of votes.

After this date, he gained the title of Leader of the Main Opposition Party. Cameron, who opposed the governments of Prime Minister Tony Blair and then Prime Minister Gordon Brown for 5 years and promised change, brought his party to the position of forming a government as the first with 307 MPs after the elections held on May 6, 2010.

However, since he did not have the majority to govern alone, Cameron started coalition negotiations with the Liberal Democrats and received the post of prime minister from Queen Elizabeth on May 11, 2010. Thus, Cameron became the youngest prime minister elected in the last 200 years and the first to form a coalition government after 1945. Although it portrayed a "soft and compromise-oriented" Conservative Party, it viewed relations with the EU with skepticism and opposed giving all powers to the EU.

David Cameron and Samantha Cameron, who got married in 1996, have two girls and one boy; They have three children named Nancy, Arthur, and Florence Rose Endellion. The Cameron couple's first child, Ivan, who was born disabled and required intensive care, died in February 2009 at the age of 6.