{"id":618697,"date":"2026-06-03T10:16:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T10:16:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/618697\/"},"modified":"2026-06-03T10:16:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T10:16:08","slug":"david-cameron-offered-boris-johnson-senior-cabinet-role-if-he-agreed-not-to-push-for-brexit-brexit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/618697\/","title":{"rendered":"David Cameron offered Boris Johnson senior Cabinet role if he agreed not to push for Brexit | Brexit"},"content":{"rendered":"

David Cameron offered Boris Johnson<\/a> a senior Cabinet position in return for campaigning for the UK to remain in the EU during the 2016 referendum, it has been revealed<\/p>\n

In the event, and with four months to go before the vote, Johnson transformed the terms of the debate<\/a> by announcing in February 2016 that \u201cafter a huge amount of heartache\u201d he was throwing his weight behind the campaign to take Britain out of the EU.<\/p>\n

However, Cameron told a BBC documentary to mark the 10th anniversary of Brexit<\/a> that he had offered Johnson \u2013 a sometime friend and long-term rival in the Conservative party \u2013 a \u201ctop five\u201d position, such as defence secretary, on the condition he did not support the push to leave.<\/p>\n

Johnson speaks of being invited by Cameron, who was then the prime minister, to play tennis in early 2016 and discuss his position on the forthcoming poll.<\/p>\n

Johnson says: \u201cHe then said: \u2018Look, would you consider joining us on the remain campaign? It\u2019d be much better if \u2026 I\u2019d love to have you in the Cabinet. You should have a top five job. And I wasn\u2019t sure what the exact hierarchy was. I obviously thought about it out of pure curiosity, what was this job? There\u2019s prime minister, chancellor, home secretary, foreign secretary. That\u2019s four. What is the fifth? A mystery.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The revelation, which was confirmed by Cameron, is made in the first episode of a two-part BBC<\/a> documentary on the referendum, A Very British Civil War, which will be broadcast on 8 June.<\/p>\n

Cameron, who is now a peer, told the documentary: \u201cI didn\u2019t say which job it was, I said: \u2018Be in no doubt, defence is a top five job, for instance.\u2019 I wanted him to understand that I valued his contribution, that he would be a major part of the government going forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

The tennis match took place at the US ambassador\u2019s tennis court next to Regent\u2019s Park, which Cameron said he could use in a \u201cwonderful deal\u201d as a place to go for rest and recreation.<\/p>\n

Craig Oliver, who was Cameron\u2019s director of communications at the time, said the then prime minister had returned from the tennis match \u201cfeeling doubly good\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne, that he\u2019d beaten Boris Johnson at tennis, and two, that he may have a concession that he would actually join the government,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Johnson\u2019s move to back Brexit was ultimately a blow to Cameron who had pleaded with him earlier on the day his decision was announced to avoid \u201clinking arms\u201d with Nigel Farage and George Galloway<\/a> in backing a British exit from the EU.<\/p>\n

Michael Gove, the justice secretary and Johnson\u2019s close cabinet colleague at the time, had already announced that he too would be campaigning to leave.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"David Cameron offered Boris Johnson a senior Cabinet position in return for campaigning for the UK to remain…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":618698,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-618697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=618697"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618697\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/618698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=618697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=618697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=618697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}