The spectacular fall of David Cameron

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David Cameron's career was at a peak a year ago when he returned the Conservatives to majority rule in Britain. But just after his finest political moment, he uttered words that would lead to his downfall today.

It was May, 2015. Mr. Cameron had clinched a surprise election victory that was so convincing that the leaders of the other three main parties had to resign.

But, standing afterward outside the official Prime Minister's residence at 10 Downing Street, he pledged that he would follow up on on his earlier promise to hold a referendum on Britain's membership in the European Union.

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"Yes, we will deliver that in-out referendum on our future in Europe," Mr. Cameron said.

From that same spot, Mr. Cameron announced Friday that he would step down after he had campaigned for the losing side in the Brexit referendum.

His critics had long warned that the referendum was an ill-conceived way to placate political dissent within his own party.

But Mr. Cameron had often overcome hurdles and tough odds before.

He came from privileged background – raised in affluence, educated at Eton and Oxford, married to a baronet's daughter – but his path to 10 Downing had not been unencumbered.

After graduating in 1988 with a first-class honours degree from Oxford' s Brasenose College, Mr. Cameron joined the Conservative Research Department. His party was in power and he spent the next six years doing the grunt work of political aides briefing ministers.

Aspiring to become an elected politician, he left for a private-sector job in 1994 to make his résumé more appealing.

He handled public relations for a media company, Carlton Communications PLC, taking a leave in 1997 to run for a parliamentary seat. He was defeated, one of the casualties of Tony Blair's landslide victory.

Mr. Cameron eventually won a seat in 2001, but it would be nearly a decade before Labour lost power.

After the 2005 election, however, Conservative leader Michael Howard stepped down and Mr. Cameron became the new head of the party, capitalizing on his youthful, relaxed image.

Mr. Cameron rebranded his party and talked about "compassionate, modern Conservatives."

He eventually ended the party's losing streak in 2010, though he had to settle for a a coalition government between his Conservatives and the Liberal Democrat Party.

The coalition had vowed to make deficit-reduction a priority. But the austerity drive unfolded amid a weak economy that plunged Britain back into recession.

Faced with accusations that his government was taxing the poor while sparing the rich, he tried clumsily to show a common touch with moves such as claiming that he enjoyed the baked pastries known in the U.K. as pasties.

It was an attempt to defuse criticism that his government was out of touch when it decided on a tax on hot baked goods. Instead, it emerged that the shop where he claimed he bought pasties had been closed for five years.

He suffered through other indignities, such as questions being raised about his close ties with Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson, former newspaper editors from Rupert Murdoch's media empire who were named in a scandal about tabloid phone hacking.

Mr. Cameron also faced centrifugal forces such as the threat of Scottish secession and the rise of Nigel Farage's United Kingdom Independence Party, which has long campaigned to pull Britain out of the EU.

In 2012, Mr. Cameron allowed the Scots to hold a referendum on independence, a gamble that was eventually successful, the "No" side winning convincingly in 2014.

Then in a long-promised speech that had been postponed repeatedly, in January, 2013, Mr. Cameron dealt with the increasingly divisive debate over EU membership by promising to hold a referendum.

Despite polls forecasting a hung parliament, Mr. Cameron won an unexpected majority in the 2015 election.

He was praised as a prime minister who could lead a stable, pro-business government, but the Brexit vote now ushers in an era of uncertainty that will stain his political legacy.

As politicians in Canada discovered long ago, betting your future on a referendum can be very bad for one's career.