Why has MP joined no deal cabinet?

AS COVERED in last week’s Echo, Loughborough’s current MP has joined Boris Johnson’s Cabinet.

Anyone following the news would be aware that a potential no-deal Brexit is central to this Government’s strategy. This was summed up by a headline in the Daily Telegraph on 27th June 2019: “Commit to no-deal Brexit or don’t serve in my cabinet, Boris Johnson threatens”.

Mrs Morgan’s position on Brexit has been consistently inconsistent for a couple of years now. However, I was still genuinely shocked that she joined Mr Johnson’s no-deal Cabinet, as I am sure many other Echo readers were.

Mrs Morgan’s website has stated “I do not support leaving the EU without a deal as this would severely impact on the economy, employers and the finances of households across the country and in my constituency”.

She also told the BBC Today Programme last September “I think I’m very unlikely to be asked but the answer is no. I would not serve in a Boris Johnson cabinet.”

In this country we have something called “collective cabinet responsibility”, so Mrs Morgan would have signed up to a potential no-deal Brexit to get in to the Cabinet, given its importance as an issue.

Hence, the statement on her website on a no-deal Brexit is directly at odds with her behaviour in joining this nodeal Cabinet.

This begs the question: is Mrs Morgan no longer bothered about the “severe impact” on our local economy and households of an increasingly likely nodeal Brexit?

On this major issue of our time, our politicians ought to take principled positions, explain them and stand by them in a consistent manner. Failure to do so undermines trust in politics.

As Labour’s candidate to be Loughborough’s next MP, I have supported the Labour position: any Brexit deal needed a close single market relationship and customs union. Otherwise, our households, university, and science and technology businesses would be seriously undermined. Such arrangements have not been achieved.

Given the impact of the Tory proposals for Brexit for our area, I am calling for a referendum, and for a vote against any Tory Brexit.

Stuart Brady, Labour’s candidate to be the next MP for the Loughborough constituency