It is only four months since Rishi Sunak brought him back into government as foreign secretary but already, having felt the pace quicken around them, officials and diplomats have given David Cameron their own title: prime minister for external affairs.
“Cameron is on a whole other level,” said one diplomat on the inside. “Before, we had [Boris] Johnson, we had [Dominic] Raab, we had [Liz]Truss and then [James] Cleverly. Cameron can read a room – he immediately sees the elephant in it, if there is one. He constantly comes back on summonses and wants to know: ‘When can I get more on this? When can I get an update on that?’”
Few, if any, other government departments in Whitehall feel newly energised these days as the Tories’ 14 years in power splutter towards their probable unedifying end. The Foreign Office, for now at least, seems to be the exception. Cameron’s officials, and diplomats in the field, believe that the contrasts in his approach from those who went before him stem partly from the fact that his first and only other job in government was that of prime minister.
“He went straight to No 10 from opposition. He only knew the pace of Downing Street. He was never in a department,” said one source. Another factor is that Cameron is in a hurry. He knows he has limited time.
His friends say he was persuaded to return to government via the House of Lords by William Hague and others because he did not want to be remembered solely, or mainly, for the humiliation of losing the Brexit referendum in June 2016. Becoming foreign secretary was a chance, Lord Hague persuaded him, to rewrite and amend his own legacy.
“Of course he doesn’t want to go down as Mr Brexit Disaster,” said one ally. “He needs to make this work, then get another job afterwards; a big international job – maybe helping work on a permanent settlement for the Middle East.”
Apart from Brexit, Cameron has other blots on his CV since he stepped down from No 10. His lobbying of government ministers on behalf of Greensill Capital during the pandemic and refusal to say how much he earned from the disgraced finance company, as well as what one friend called “too much cosying up to China”, inflicted more reputational damage.
Another former diplomat added: “He is pretty clear that he has got a certain number of days left until the election. You can sense that kind of urgency in him.”
Since last November, Cameron has been to the Middle East five times and Ukraine on a similar number of visits. No 10 appears to give him free rein because Sunak is not that interested or focused on foreign affairs, particularly when so much is going wrong domestically. “They are very much inclined to leave him to it,” says one senior figure in Whitehall. “Downing Street doesn’t interfere.”
An ex-diplomat who worked closely with Cameron when he was prime minister said: “David doesn’t have to consult with the prime minister. Because he is a former PM himself, he can run things himself. For the same reason, he is getting access that other foreign secretaries would not. He gets straight to prime ministers.”
There is, however, another very important reason why Cameron is being noticed more and more, at home and abroad, and why many in and around the Foreign Office are warming to him – the increasingly tough line he is taking with Israel over its bombardment of Gaza, and evidence that Benjamin Netanyahu’s administration is obstructing the flow of aid into Gaza.
In recent days, Cameron has been far more critical. Last week came the extraordinary story that Israel’s English-language government spokesman, Eylon Levy, had been suspended after an online row with the British foreign secretary, who had urged Israel “to allow more [aid] trucks into Gaza”.
Levy responded on X: “I hope you are also aware there are NO limits on the entry of food, water, medicine, or shelter equipment into Gaza, and in fact the crossings have EXCESS capacity.”
Levy added: “Test us. Send another 100 trucks a day to Kerem Shalom and we’ll get them in,” referring to an Israeli-controlled southern border crossing.
For someone who as prime minister was always a close of friend of Israel, regularly attending events of the Conservative Friends of Israel and in early 2016 approving a new Holocaust memorial in Victoria Tower Gardens in Westminster, Cameron’s latest argument with the Netanyahu government has, his allies say, “entirely been driven by recent events”.
He is, though, becoming more strident by the day and is now even contemplating the possibility of cutting off UK arms supplies to Israel, particularly if its military were to attack the city of Rafah in southern Gaza. Last week, in a letter to the House of Commons foreign affairs select committee, Cameron wrote: “It is of enormous frustration that UK aid for Gaza has been routinely held up waiting for Israeli permissions…The main blockers remain arbitrary denials by the government of Israel and lengthy clearance procedures, including multiple screenings and narrow opening windows and daylight hours.”
Inside the Foreign Office, Cameron has established a “large team” of officials and lawyers to monitor whether Israel is complying with international humanitarian law. The strong indications are that if it went into Rafah, the UK would say: “Enough is enough” and suspend all arms sales.
Diplomats say they would have to do so as such a ruling would make selling them illegal.
Cameron’s approach is completely unrecognisable from that of Sunak and Cleverly in the immediate aftermath of 7 October. Downing Street and the Foreign Office insist the two are in lockstep. But it is clear that Cameron is driving the tone of responses.
Former UK ambassador to Paris Peter Ricketts said of Cameron’s approach to Israel: “He is intensively exasperated that the aid isn’t getting in, that it is held up on the border, that he has endlessly argued the case with the Israelis.”
Lord Ricketts added: “They have an iron grip on the border. I think he is genuinely, passionately convinced that he can make a difference in the months he has got, by trying to get this humanitarian blockage lifted, get aid, and work with [US secretary of state Antony] Blinken on a post-conflict solution.”
There are also suggestions that Cameron is working closely with other countries within the G7. Canada has already made moves to cut arms sales to Israel.
Another senior diplomat said: “In some ways, I am surprised that we have not done some of this already. Waiting to try to do it with a wider group of countries would make sense.” The US would take some persuading but even Joe Biden could come round, the diplomat said. .
“I find it hard to imagine Biden would do this in an election year. However, Biden needs to win Michigan if he is to win the elections and that is a classic swing state with the biggest Arab-American community in the US, and a lot of them are very, very unhappy with current policy.”
Whatever happens, the UK foreign secretary is now very much at the heart of a tough new approach to Israel – one that only a few months ago would have been unthinkable.
