No Confidence in Her Majesty’s Government

Sam Gyimah Excerpts

Wednesday 16th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Sam Gyimah (East Surrey) (Con)]

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.

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that the first duty of the state is to protect its citizens. Given the Leader of the Opposition’s previous comments about not having an Army, and his position on Trident, let us imagine him running this country. Does my hon. Friend agree that our country’s security would be completely destroyed?

[Mr Gyimah]

I will come on to security in a second.

It is not just Labour Members who feel threatened by the mob. Journalists have needed protection at the Labour party conference, and it was one of Labour’s own MPs who called their party institutionally racist. Also, 40% of British Jews would consider leaving this country. Why? Because the Leader of the Opposition has spent a lifetime hanging around with the likes of Hamas and Hezbollah.

[Naz Shah (Bradford West) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Gyimah]

I need to carry on.

No Prime Minister should be an enemy of our democracy or of our institutions. I was surprised to hear the shadow Justice Secretary say that we needed to ensure that our judiciary represented society. What could go wrong when politicians start trying to make our independent judiciary representative of our society?

The next point is security. During the 2017 general election, when I spoke to people on the doorstep and mentioned things like the IRA, some people said to me, “That was 30 years ago,” or “I don’t know the difference between the IRA and the IMF.” Recently, however, we had a test case when Russian agents murdered an innocent person on British soil. In response, 147 Russian intelligence officers were expelled. Smaller countries such as Moldova, Estonia and Hungary also expelled Russian agents from their countries in support of us. To this day, we do not know whether the Leader of the Opposition supported that action. In fact, he said that we should send samples to the lead suspect in that murder case so that they could tell us whether or not they did it. That is very serious, because it sends a green light to every gangster that if this motion of no confidence goes through and the Leader of the Opposition becomes Prime Minister of our country, they will have a free pass. Putin and Assad will have a free pass—[Interruption.] Also, it suggests to the western alliance to which we are committed—[Interruption.] We are members of NATO—

[Naz Shah]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Speaker]

Order. At the moment, the hon. Gentleman is not giving way.

[Mr Gyimah]

We are members of NATO, and we believe that an attack on one is an attack on all. We are committed to defending our allies. So what would happen if we had a Prime Minister who was not committed to NATO? The entire western alliance, and everything it is based on, would be completely undermined. I will vote with the Government today on the principle that there are certain things that no Prime Minister should ever do and that we cannot trust the Leader of the Opposition not to do them. That is why we should all vote to support this Government.