Parliament is not working as it should because politicians are not doing what their voters instructed them to do. The whole working of government has seized up because of political infighting and no resolution is in sight.
Parliament gave the British people a decision to make as to whether we remain in the European Union or leave. Wigan, the North West of England and the United Kingdom decided to leave the EU and expected politicians to respect their decision.
Politicians, led by Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn, have chosen not to respect democracy and not to take us out of the EU. Parliament voted to trigger Article 50 which gave a two year deadline for departure – deal or no deal. The 29th March came and went but the Establishment kept us in the quagmire of EU negotiations that never make any progress.
I voted and campaigned to leave the EU and have seen how the vested interests have fought against our departure. They are demanding all sorts of conditions such as membership of the Customs Union and the Single Market, the handing over of £39 billion of British taxpayers’ money and are using every trick in the political book to delay and keep us in. The Speaker of the House of Commons, a remain supporter, is upending parliamentary rules to thwart Brexit.
The Customs Union is the underlying basis of the European Union, as it was in the Treaty of Rome. Anyone supporting it is therefore tying us into the core of the European dream of a super state, a United States of Europe to rival the US of A.
Anger against politicians is rising across the EU as countries are heading into recession and their political systems fragment and fail under the weight of their dysfunctionality. The Greek crisis, that has caused terrible suffering, rumbles on and the powerful countries, such as France and Germany, teeter on the edge of recession. They are heading for a collapse of their own making so we must leave before they bring us down with them.
Anger against British politicians is also on the rise. My constituents make this clear by letter, on social media and at the regular public meetings I hold. Nearly two hundred people attended a public meeting I held on Brexit last Friday evening and the majority wanted us out of the EU now. The foundation of our trade with the US and most of the rest of the world is on World Trade Organisation rules and they work very well for us. We have a trade surplus with the US whilst we have a significant trade deficit with the EU.
I did not come into politics to bang on about Europe. My focus is on good jobs, education and health. Unemployment is at its lowest level since the 1970s and we are breaking Labour’s culture of welfare dependency. The vast majority of the new jobs being created are full-time, salaried positions not the Labour myth of zero-hour contracts. We have just seen the building of a new mental health hospital in Leigh, Atherleigh Park. We are working hard to deliver parity of esteem between physical and mental health – there is more to do but we are getting there.
Law and order is a key concern for my constituents and I met the Police Superintendent responsible for the whole of the Wigan Borough, to discuss police performance. There has been more money made available to the police. They have recently undergone a reorganisation and are actively recruiting new police and this should deliver positive results. I am in no doubt that more money is required for law and order and I will continue to make this case to ministers.
Before being first elected to Parliament in 2015, I was an engineer for nearly twenty years in the mass spectrometry industry and it was a culture shock to move from a well-ordered industry into politics. Understanding the needs of colleagues and customers and then delivering was always a priority for me and I believe we need to fix our political culture to redeem our damaged political system. We need to deliver a real Brexit, to focus on your priorities and to build a greater Britain for all our futures.
