David Cameron defended his decision to hold a Brexit referendum and suggested future UK-EU relations “can be fixed” in an address to the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) Summit in Bangkok.
Cameron told the WTTC summit: “There is a period of uncertainty. People decided against what I advised, but they had a right to do that.
“Now I hope we’ll be out of the EU, but into co-operation on security and come to a good deal.”
In one of his few public statements on events since resigning as prime minister last June, Cameron justified calling an in/out referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU saying: “The lack of a referendum was poisoning British politics.
“It was a cause of populist concern that Britain was a member of an organisation which had changed over the years, but people never got a referendum. I felt people should decide.
“You could say the Tory Party, which has got on with dealing with the referendum result, is now the most healthy mainstream party because it is addressing the causes of populism.”
The former prime minister appeared relaxed about the Brexit negotiations, saying: “I would hope we’re able to agree the first stages of divorce – and it is a like a divorce, you have to deal with the money first, then access to the children.
“If we settle the principles we can get on to future relations – to continue free trade of goods and then add as many agreements as we can in the time available, on trade in services, on financial services, on flying rights.
“I think it can be fixed.”
Cameron said: “The two-year time frame is fixed. You could argue ‘let’s keep things as they are till we reach agreement’.”
He suggested there could be little fundamental change to EU workers’ rights to move to Britain and UK citizens’ rights to work in the EU.
Cameron said: “I’m not sure we’re going to see extreme controls on workers from the EU coming to Britain. Having a simple work permit deal should not be too difficult to arrange.”