The MP behind the shortest, most hopeless membership bid has been back on the news: this morning on, Sophie Ridge on Sunday, Sam Gyimah announced that he would lead a conspiracy to undermine his own party and government to stop a no-deal, including unspecified legislative intervention – which is a realistic threat as we saw before, even is the resultant emergency Act of Parliament turned out to be a damp squib.
However listen to what else he said: he declared that he has consistently voted against ‘no deal’. That’s not actually true though, is it Sam?
In fact, he consistently voted against the Withdrawal Agreement, three times. In fact, he has consistently voted for no deal, on every binding vote: he only voted against in a non-binding motion and that rushed and effectively non-binding Act of Parliament.
Two things could have secured a deal, which Gyimah, Grieve and others claim to want: passing the Withdrawal Agreement, or allowing the Government the authority it needed to negotiate a better deal. Passing a motion to deprive the government of authority to walk away just handed the negotiation to Brussels and left Mrs May powerless to force any concession.
It was that recklessness too which drove Mrs May from office and opened the door for Boris Johnson: you are responsible, Sam.
In short, Mr Gyimah, Mr Grieve and others, your every action has been directed to ensuring that no deal can be reached. When the United Kingdom crashes out of the EU without a transition, you must take personal responsibility, and if your recklessness is such as to trigger a General Election before the party’s poll ratings have recovered, every Conservative seat will have a split vote with the Brexit Party, Mr Corbyn and Mr MacDonnell will waltz into Downing Street, and the resultant economic meltdown will make even the maddest of Project Fear projections seem as nothing. Then we will look to you, personally, to accept responsibility.
