No Confidence in Her Majesty’s Government

Debate between Jeremy Corbyn and Chris Philp

Wednesday 16th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has no confidence in Her Majesty’s Government.

Last night, the Government were defeated by 230 votes —the largest defeat in the history of our democracy. They are the first Government to be defeated by more than 200 votes. Indeed, the Government themselves could barely muster more than 200 votes. Last week, they lost a vote on the Finance Bill—that is what is called supply. Yesterday, they lost a vote by the biggest margin ever—that is what is regarded as confidence. By any convention of this House—by any precedent—loss of confidence and supply should mean that they do the right thing and resign.

The Prime Minister has consistently claimed that her deal, which has now been decisively rejected, was good for Britain, workers and businesses. If she is so confident of that—if she genuinely believes it—she should have nothing to fear from going to the people and letting them decide.

In this week in 1910, the British electorate went to the polls. They did so because Herbert Asquith’s Liberal Government had been unable to get Lloyd George’s “People’s Budget” through the House of Lords. They were confident in their arguments, and they went to the people and were returned to office. That is still how our democracy works. When we have a Government that cannot govern, it is those conventions that guide us in the absence of a written constitution. If a Government cannot get their legislation through Parliament, they must go to the country for a new mandate, and that must apply when that situation relates to the key issue of the day.

[Chris Philp (Croydon South) (Con)]

Is not the Leader of the Opposition engaging in a piece of shameless political opportunism, putting party interests ahead of national interests? Is he not simply trying to disguise the fact that he has no policy on this great issue?

[Jeremy Corbyn]

In 2017, the Prime Minister and her party thought that they could call an election and win it. They thought that they would return with an overall majority, but there was an enormous increase in the Labour vote—the biggest since 1945—during that campaign when people saw what our policies actually were.

When the Prime Minister asked to be given a mandate, she bypassed the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011, which, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry), the shadow Foreign Secretary, pointed out, was designed to give some stability to the Tory-Lib Dem coalition Government to ensure that the Lib Dems could not hold the Conservatives to ransom by constantly threatening to collapse the coalition. The 2011 Act was never intended to prop up a zombie Government, and there can be no doubt that this is a zombie Government.

Military Action Overseas: Parliamentary Approval

Debate between Jeremy Corbyn and Chris Philp

Tuesday 17th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Chris Philp (Croydon South) (Con)]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. He has laid out a test, which he thinks could be met in emergency circumstances. Does that not mean that we may have a situation in which British forces need to be urgently committed, yet court action would end up determining whether or not that could happen? Would it not be wrong that judges, rather than the Cabinet, made those kinds of decisions?

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I am not quite sure where the hon. Gentleman gets that logic from, because it certainly does not come from anything that I have said. [Interruption.]