Mr Cameron’s former director of communications, Sir Craig Oliver, claimed in a Mail on Sunday serialisation of his book that she had deliberately kept her head down during the referendum campaign in order to better position herself to secure No 10 for herself after the vote.
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He added: “The opportunity is to do a deal that I think would be very much in the interests, not only of the – of the United Kingdom but also of our friends and partners in the EU”.
The author also said that Boris Johnson-a leading “out” campaigner and now foreign minister-“wobbled” over backing a Brexit and told Cameron that he would be supporting the leave campaign only nine minutes before announcing it to the media.
He said: “In the past, a Knight of the realm who had failed in battle and lost would have quit the field and retired in humility to better understand their own failings”.
“How surprising then to find that far from that, Sir Craig Oliver, one of the leading lights of Remain, has chose to instead try to pin the blame for his failure on others, particularly the new prime minister”.
“Craig Oliver’s is one of a growing number of foolish attempts by ex-government Remainers who lost to shift responsibility for their failure”, he said.
Cameron then turned to one of his officials and said: “I can’t do it without their support”.
This led to Downing Street nicknaming her “submarine May” because of her habit of disappearing when Mr Cameron asked for help, it is alleged.
Cameron’s former director of communications Sir Craig Oliver also suggests that the current United Kingdom prime minister, Theresa May, was seen by some members of the Remain campaign as an “enemy agent”.
Mr Oliver also describes the Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson, as being “in turmoil, flip-flopping within a matter of hours” over which side to support, revealing himself to be “reckless” and “deceitful”.
At one point, Sir Craig said that the Remain campaign director Will Straw had been so uncertain where her true loyalties lay, he had sent a text asking: “Are we sure May’s not an agent for the other side!?” “This is a book that has been written after the event. Theresa May and Philip Hammond were the ones to say you won’t get the emergency brake”.
“I don’t blame Craig for doing that”. Theresa May during the referendum campaign made her position very clear.
Adding: “When Theresa talks about “I will not take no for an answer”, she was the one who folded then”. It also said that the sky is not going to fall in if we leave.
David Cameron became intensely frustrated at Theresa May’s unwillingness to declare her intentions in the run-up to the European Union referendum campaign, according to his former communications chief.
However, he said he decided against it, saying he feared remaining in Downing Street would have left him “being prepared for the slaughterhouse”.
Oliver’s intervention comes at a time of deteriorating relations between those close to the new prime minister and allies of Cameron, who are furious at her distancing herself from his premiership and ditching key aspects of his legacy.
Sir Craig Oliver said the home secretary failed to support Mr Cameron on 13 separate occasions before she eventually sided with Remain.
The aide who witnessed the exchanges said on Saturday: “It’s true she obviously wanted as good an immigration deal as she could get”.
The then home secretary’s “sphinx-like approach” became hard, he added in the book, as the press were questioning which way she would jump.
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Things only looked promising, when on a train to Chippenham for a speech, Mr Cameron rang Mrs May to ask her to ‘make clear we have been victorious in our plan to crackdown on “swindlers and fiddlers” attempting to come into the United Kingdom’.
