the 2016 referendum and described his decision to take that side as "the most difficult decision of my political life". He and his family spent Christmas with the Camerons at Chequers where, according to Craig Oliver, Cameron was under the impression that Gove would support remaining in the EU. Despite this, Gove decided to support the Leave campaign. At the beginning of March 2016, he was appointed co-convenor of Vote Leave, with Labour MP Gisela Stuart, and given responsibility for chairing the campaign committee. He argued Britain would be "freer, fairer and better off" for leaving, and that "[t]he day after we vote to leave, we hold all the cards and we can choose the path we want." When in an interview it was claimed that there was no expert opinion to support this, Gove remarked that "the people of this country have had enough of experts from organisations with acronyms saying they know what is best and getting it consistently wrong." However, interviewer Faisal Islam interrupted Gove after the word "experts", causing some sources to report that he had made a general statement that "the people... have had enough of experts". In 2021, Louise Richardson, the vice-chancellor of the University of Oxford, said she was "embarrassed" that Gove was an alumnus, on account of these comments. In his memoir For the Record, Cameron described Gove during this period as "mendacious", adding: "One quality shone through, disloyalty. Disloyalty to me and, later, disloyalty to Boris [Johnson]". Conservative Party leadership candidate (2016) After Cameron announced his intention to resign as Prime Minister, with his successor now likely to be in office by September 2016, Gove was not a candidate, having said in the past that he had no interest in becoming Prime Minister. Instead, he was seen as a strong, highly influential supporter of Johnson for that role. In a move that surprised most political analysts, Gove withdrew his support for Johnson on 30 June 2016, hours before the deadline, without any previous notice to Johnson and announced his own candidacy in the leadership election. Subsequently, Johnson declined to run. The Telegraph opined that Gove's actions in undermining Johnson's leadership aspirations constituted "the most spectacular political assassination in a generation" while The Guardian labelled it as a "Machiavellian move". Gove said: "I wanted to help build a team behind Boris Johnson so that a politician who argued for leaving the European