Michael Gove:
Every election matters. Our democracy is precious. But in some elections we are faced with historic choices that will define our future for many years to come. In the post-war era, the 1945 and 1979 elections charted the country’s course for decades to come. Through the creation of the welfare state and the reversal of our national decline, they still shape our politics today. This election in 2019 is also era-defining.
There are two, starkly different, possible paths the country could take on Thursday, each with far-reaching consequences.
The first leads to another hung parliament. The democratic impasse which has defined Westminster for the last three years would continue. Trust in our democracy would erode further.
Jeremy Corbyn could engineer his way into Downing Street with the votes of SNP and Lib Dem MPs. Instead of getting Brexit done, we would face two referendums next year – one on Brexit and one on Scottish independence. Jeremy Corbyn wants to hold another Brexit referendum. Ludicrously, he says he would negotiate a new deal with the EU and then decline to support it in the referendum he is so determined to secure. Even more alarmingly, he would call the legitimacy of the whole exercise into question by changing the rules – extending the franchise to 2 million EU citizens who are overwhelmingly likely to vote Remain. For the 17.4 million who voted to Leave this would inevitably be seen as an outrageous bid to overturn a mandate that politicians of all parties pledged to honour. The damage to faith in our democracy would be profound.
To compound the political turmoil, Corbyn would also accede to Nicola Sturgeon’s demand for a referendum in Scotland designed to break up our United Kingdom. Instead of doing what is needed to strengthen our family of nations, we would have a Government determined to prolong wrangling over Brexit, undermine confidence in democracy and entrench division across our precious Union. It would be a constitutional clanjamfrie in which the common good would be sacrificed to politicians’ vanity.
The damage wouldn’t be restricted to our political culture. The next generation would suffer while Corbyn and Sturgeon spend time re-running referendums. The publication this week of the OECD’s assessment of international education systems showed that the UK as a whole is performing well. But while England went forward, following a decade of effort to reform schools, Scotland went backwards. The obsession with constitutional arguments which has damaged Scottish education will be writ large across the UK if we have another hung parliament. Our economy and public services will be neglected as endlessly repeated Brexit arguments drown everything else out.
The second path we could take is towards a Conservative majority government. The Conservatives are the only party which can win a majority at this election and we only need nine more seats to get there.
If we win that majority, we can get this country moving forward again. We’ll bring the Prime Minister’s deal back to Parliament before Christmas and get it through by the end of January. The chaos of the last three and half years will be over and Brexit will be done. At last we will be able to concentrate our efforts on all the other issues that matter to people. Forget £350 million a week, we will spend £650 million a week extra in the NHS in cash terms. There will be 50 million more GP surgery appointments, 50,000 more nurses and, within a decade, 40 brand new hospitals.
We’ll build on our education reforms in England by improving discipline, strengthening Ofsted and opening more outstanding free schools – all supported by an extra £150 million every week.
We’ll fight crime – by putting 20,000 more police officers on the streets and toughening up Labour’s soft sentencing policies.
We will also bring to an end the EU’s policy of free movement of people, which has undermined public trust in our ability to control our own borders. The overwhelming desire to restore democratic control over migration policy was one of the reasons why the UK voted to leave. Today we are setting out how we intend to meet that desire through the Australian-style points-based immigration system we will introduce from January 2021.
Three distinct categories of migrant will be able to apply: those with exceptional talent, skilled workers who will need a job offer, and those doing temporary work, including through sector-specific schemes to address labour shortages. Anyone convicted of a serious crime will be barred. A new digital immigration status will be introduced to crack down on illegal overstaying beyond 2022.
These are just some of the ways we will deliver for the British people – if we win a majority on Thursday. No one should be in any doubt or pay too much attention to opinion polls – this election is on a knife edge.
Just a handful of votes are the difference between moving Britain forward with a Conservative majority, or backwards with another hung parliament. The stakes could hardly be higher.