David Cameron to be new UK Foreign Secretary: Who is the former PM, what his return signals

In a post on X confirming the appointment, Cameron wrote, “While I have been out of front-line politics for the last seven years, I hope that my experience – as Conservative Leader for eleven years and Prime Minister for six – will assist me in helping the Prime Minister to meet… vital challenges.”

Who is David Cameron?

Cameron is a former UK Prime Minister (between 2010 to 2016) and a senior Conservative party leader. Like many prominent UK politicians, he studied at the elite Eton College before graduating from Oxford University.

He was given the mandate to change and modernise the Conservative Party and was elected its leader in December 2005, following the party’s weak electoral performance. The party did bounce back, and in 2010 it formed a coalition government with the Liberal Democrats and came to power. Cameron became Prime Minister, making him the youngest UK PM in 198 years at the age of 43.

Under Cameron, the Conservatives won two general elections – in 2010 and 2015. But following the Brexit vote of 2016, he resigned from the post and was succeeded by Theresa May as PM.

Why did Cameron pitch for a Brexit vote?

Cameron agreed to hold a nationwide referendum on Brexit, or the idea that the UK should formally leave the European Union.

For a long time, many conservatives in the UK had been critical of the EU, the multinational organisation with its own parliament, market and common currency. Built to facilitate intra-Europe cooperation, the conservative view in many European countries was critical of it. They believed it to be too bureaucratic in its systems and that it hindered member countries’s ability to make independent policies on matters like immigration.

Cameron was opposed to Brexit but agreed to the referendum. Reports suggested he was under pressure from the more hardline members of his party, including future PM Boris Johnson, even though Cameron himself wanted the UK to remain in the EU.

After the referendum’s results, Cameron resigned as the PM. Around 52 per cent of people voted to leave the EU, stumping most analysts and experts. The tone of and promises made by the leave campaign on the benefits of exiting the EU were criticised for being reactionary – particularly on the issue of immigration – and overstated by those who supported remaining.

Since then, Cameron has not been active in politics. In 2019, he told NPR: “The greatest regret is that we lost the (Brexit) referendum, that I didn’t prevail, that we could’ve fought perhaps a better campaign, we could have conducted perhaps a better negotiation — perhaps the timing wasn’t right — and that I didn’t take the country with me on what I thought was a really important issue.”

Notably, in 2014 Cameron had agreed to hold a referendum on Scottish independence, which was another long-standing issue in UK politics. In this case, he campaigned against the creation of Scotland as an independent country and sailed through the vote, as the Scots voted by 55-45% to stay in the United Kingdom.

What does Cameron’s return to politics signal?

Brexit also triggered a chain of events that has since tossed the country from one economic and political crisis to another. Sunak is the fourth PM to be appointed since Cameron resigned.

But Cameron’s return is being seen as one of the last throws of the dice by Sunak to snatch a Tory victory from what seems like the jaws of almost certain defeat in the 2025 UK general elections. An analysis in The Guardian said bringing back Cameron could please more moderate sections of Sunak’s party — however, it could lead to a loss of support from those on the far right.

A BBC analysis made the point that the “appointment allows the Prime Minister to argue he is bringing the Conservative family back together”.