UK Parliament / Open data

No Confidence in Her Majesty’s Government

Proceeding contribution from Sam Gyimah (Conservative) in the House of Commons on Wednesday, 16 January 2019. It occurred during Debate on No Confidence in Her Majesty’s Government.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Justine Greening) hit the nail on the head when she said in her speech that, at a time of constitutional and political crisis in this country, every minute we spend on politics as usual and business as usual is a disaster for this country.

On the issue of Brexit, the Opposition have been completely absent from the field. It seems to me that the Leader of the Opposition has been gambling on chaos, believing that that will present him with the perfect opportunity to get into government and focus on his single-minded aim to introduce a Marxist “utopia” for this country. So on the issue of Brexit, Labour is not a Government-in-waiting; it is an Opposition in hiding.

Brexit is not the only issue, as the Opposition have said today, that we need to be debating. There are certain things that no Prime Minister of this country, irrespective of the political party they represent, should ever do. One of those things is to interfere with the territorial integrity of this country. No Prime Minister has the right to do that. Another thing is that no Prime Minister should side with our enemies or be an enemy of our institutions.

Perhaps we are wondering what the Leader of the Opposition would be like as Prime Minister—and that is important, because anyone who votes for no confidence in the Government is suggesting that he should be the Prime Minister of this country. We need only look at what happened to Labour Members with a dissenting voice. They were threatened by a mob, yet the Leader of the Opposition pretends that that had nothing to do with him. Many of us on this side of the House disagree with the Prime Minister—I am one of them—and we say so in the TV studios every now and again, but at least we can have the confidence that we will never need police protection for disagreeing with her on a matter of principle. That is what has happened in the Opposition.

Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
652 c1209 
Session
2017-19
Chamber / Committee
House of Commons chamber
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