Cameron's pre-Brexit settlement for the UK within the European Union: failure or missed opportunity

While the vote on Brexit showed a narrow yes to leave the EU, the most stunning effect was the end of former Prime Minister (PM) Cameron's political career. The vote was a surprise to many including Cameron himself who negotiated intensely with the EU members before the Brexit vote and got a surprisingly high number of concessions with the hope that the Brexit vote would be negative and that the UK would remain a member of the EU. This article endeavours to assess these concessions PM Cameron obtained before the vote, and how they were obtained. Multi-stakeholder theory and multi-actor negotiation theory have been applied to shed light on the negotiation process and a final closing section assesses whether these concessions were insufficient or whether the concessions were not communicated adequately by PM Cameron and his government.