Betty Boothroyd: 'Voters were let down—all of them', attack on Brexit - 2019

14 January 2019, London, United Kingdom

My Lords, I cherish my European citizenship and regret its loss when or if—dare I say it?—Brexit becomes law. I identified myself as a British patriot and a European when I went to Berlin and other war-torn cities on the continent with little ​more than £5 in my pocket at the age of 17. I stayed with social democrat families who welcomed me into their homes. Europe is part of my DNA; it transcends treaties and bureaucracy.

For a time, I sat in the European Parliament, but preferred Westminster. This is not the first time that the Tory party has torn itself apart on this issue. As Speaker of the Commons, I watched the Tory party tear itself apart during the Maastricht debates. I feared the worst when David Cameron allied his party with the far right in Strasbourg and even more so when he caved in to his right-wingers and media pressure by calling the 2016 referendum. He thought he would win but has said since that he did not mind losing. I did mind.

Theresa May, whose tenacity commands respect, has been struggling to keep her party together ever since. Her Government stumble from one expediency to another, unimpeded by a dithering leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition whose only consistency is evasion. The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, was right the other day when she related the current drift and national crisis to the period of 1940, but there is a major difference. At that time, the leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition gave leadership. He carried his parliamentary party with him and people in the country knew of his commitment and supported it—that is the difference.

I am not a devotee of referenda. I rather enjoy general elections, but general elections are not single-issue events—they cover a host of issues. A general election is not the way to settle the European question. After two years, we are now more aware of the minuses and pluses and the people must determine this single issue. I urge Back-Benchers in the Commons to reject the pretences of Ministers who say—I quote Dr Fox, the International Trade Secretary—that a second referendum would put us in, ‘unprecedented territory with unknown consequences’.

My Lords, we have been wandering in the wilderness since Mrs May lost her majority in the election. I wonder how high Dr Fox was flying when he dreamed that one up. In my book, if a democracy cannot be allowed to change its mind, it ceases to be a democracy.

When the Minister winds up, will he say what the Government are afraid of in refusing a people’s vote? In answering that question, will he please explain to young people who have reached adulthood why they do not have the right to be heard on an issue that our generation has manifestly bodged? Brexit will shape these youngsters’ futures for the next 50 years—not ours. I have no children or grandchildren; my quality of life will not be affected. I am all right, Jack. But what about the Jacks and Jills out there? Are they to be stripped of their rights on the whim of those who peddled rubbish in the referendum and are afraid to be challenged in another?

I was a government Whip when Harold Wilson was Prime Minister. He said that anyone who claimed that membership of the European Community was a black and white issue was either a charlatan or a simpleton. I leave your Lordships to adjudicate on that one. Which brings me to Mr Boris Johnson: his campaign bus did not proclaim, ‘Say yes to no deal’. We were promised an easy ride with a cash bonus thrown in. The question ​on the ballot paper did not ask us to choose between a hard or soft Brexit, a Canadian or a Norway-plus deal, or a deal that would separate Northern Ireland from the rest of the United Kingdom.

Nobody dreamed that we would be frantically preparing for worst-case scenarios. We are now paying the price for a referendum that was dominated by falsehoods. Brexiteers promised the world but ignored the social and political realities festering in our own country. Now, Parliament is convulsed, Whitehall is pulverised and Downing Street has become a drop-in for chilled wine and persuasive chats, while industry and business are alarmed and our friends and allies are bewildered. Who can possibly blame them?

In yesterday’s Sunday Express, Mrs May said:

‘Some of you put your trust in the political process for the first time in decades. We cannot—and must not—let you down’.

But voters were let down—all of them. Both sides failed to focus on the issues that mattered most to them. Look at the Electoral Commission report. It said that many voters were unclear about the consequences of victory for either side and did not know the answers to questions they expected to be at the heart of the campaign. Both the Prime Minister and the leader of the Opposition should heed that report and listen to the voice of a young generation, who have a right to be part of the decisions affecting their future.

Many years ago, a debate took place in the Commons that changed the course of the war. Back-Benchers played a pivotal role then and I hope will do so tomorrow. My message is: Back-Benchers arise and forget your party allegiance. The national interest demands it.

Petro Poroshenko: 'How many citizens of the UK died because of Brexit?', Message to Boris Johnson - 2022

This is extraordinary.

Former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko sends a message to Boris Johnson: “How many citizens of the UK died because of Brexit? Zero … please, no comparison” pic.twitter.com/JKO1dEN0Ih

— Rachel Wearmouth (@REWearmouth) March 22, 2022

22 March 2022, Ukraine

How many citizens of the United Kingdom died because of Brexit?

Zero

Can you imagine how many Ukrainians died before the mad Putin aggression?

Thousands.

Only today we have more than 150 children which were killed by Russian soldiers and by Russian artillery.

Only during the last week, 2000 of the children, only from Mariupol, was captured and delivered back to Russia.

Can I ask you how many houses were destroyed because of the Brexit?

We have whole cities which were completely erased.

Starting from Mariupol, which is much worse than Aleppo, starting from where you are, here , I dunno, seven or eight kilometres from you and from me! We have [names cities], we have the city of Kiev with destroyed houses.

With this situation, definitely, please, no comparison.

Keir Starmer: 'A man without shame... damaging everyone and everything around him', Downing Street parties report - 2022

31 January 2022, Westminster, London, UK

Thank you Mr Speaker, I’d like to thank Sue Gray for the diligence and professionalism with which she’s carried out her work. It’s through no fault of hers that she’s only been able to produce an update today, not the full report.

The prime minister repeatedly assured the House that the guidance was followed and the rules were followed. But we now know that 12 cases have breached the threshold for criminal investigation, which I remind the House means that there is evidence of serious and flagrant breaches of lockdown, including the party on May 20 2020, which we know the prime minister attended, and the party on November 13 2020 in the prime minister’s flat.

There can be no doubt that the prime minister himself is now subject to criminal investigation. The prime minister must keep his promise to publish Sue Gray’s report in full when it is available, but it is already clear what the report disclosed is the most damning conclusion possible.

By routinely breaking the rules he set, the prime minister took us all for fools, he held people’s sacrifice in contempt, he showed himself unfit for office.

His desperate denials since he was exposed have only made matters worse. Rather than come clean, every step of the way he’s insulted the public’s intelligence.

And now he’s finally fallen back on his usual excuse: it’s everybody’s fault but his. They go, he stays. Even now he is hiding behind a police investigation into criminality in his home and his office.

He gleefully treats what should be a mark of shame as a welcome shield. But prime minister, the British public aren’t fools, they never believed a word of it, they think the prime minister should do the decent thing and resign.

Of course he won’t because he is a man without shame and just as he has done throughout his life, he’s damaged everyone and everything around him along the way.

His colleagues have spent weeks defending the indefensible, touring the TV studios parroting his absurd denials, degrading themselves and their offices, fraying the bond of trust between the government and the public, eroding our democracy and the rule of law.

[Margaret Thatcher said] ‘the first duty of government is to uphold the law. If it tries to bob and weave and duck around that duty when it is inconvenient, then so will the governed.’

To govern this country is an honour, not a birthright. It’s an act of service to the British people, not the keys to a court to parade to your friends.

It requires honesty, integrity and moral authority. I can’t tell you how many times people have said to me that this prime minister’s lack of integrity is somehow ‘priced in’, that his behaviour and character don’t matter. I have never accepted that and I never will accept that.

Whatever your politics, whatever party you vote for, honesty and decency matter. Our great democracy depends on it, and cherishing and nurturing British democracy is what it means to be patriotic.

There are members opposite who know that, and they know the prime minister is incapable of it. The question they must ask themselves is what are they going to do about it?

They can heap their reputations, the reputation of their party and the reputation of this country on the bonfire that is his leadership, or they can spare the country from a prime minister totally unworthy of his responsibilities. It is their duty to do so.

They know better than anyone how unsuitable he is for high office, many of them knew in their hearts that we would inevitably come to this one day, and they know that as night follows day, continuing his leadership will mean further misconduct, cover-up and deceit.

It is only they who can end this farce. The eyes of the country are upon them. They will be judged on the decisions they take now.

Boris Johnson: 'We will beat the coronavirus and we will beat it together', COVID-19 address to nation - 2020

23 March 2020, London, United Kingdom

Good Evening,

The coronavirus is the biggest threat this country has faced for decades – and this country is not alone.

All over the world we are seeing the devastating impact of this invisible killer.

And so tonight I want to update you on the latest steps we are taking to fight the disease and what you can do to help.

And I want to begin by reminding you why the UK has been taking the approach that we have.

Without a huge national effort to halt the growth of this virus, there will come a moment when no health service in the world could possibly cope; because there won’t be enough ventilators, enough intensive care beds, enough doctors and nurses.

And as we have seen elsewhere, in other countries that also have fantastic health care systems, that is the moment of real danger.

To put it simply, if too many people become seriously unwell at one time, the NHS will be unable to handle it - meaning more people are likely to die, not just from Coronavirus but from other illnesses as well.

So it’s vital to slow the spread of the disease.

Because that is the way we reduce the number of people needing hospital treatment at any one time, so we can protect the NHS’s ability to cope - and save more lives.

And that’s why we have been asking people to stay at home during this pandemic.

And though huge numbers are complying - and I thank you all - the time has now come for us all to do more.

From this evening I must give the British people a very simple instruction - you must stay at home.

Because the critical thing we must do is stop the disease spreading between households.

That is why people will only be allowed to leave their home for the following very limited purposes:

shopping for basic necessities, as infrequently as possible
one form of exercise a day - for example a run, walk, or cycle - alone or with members of your household;
any medical need, to provide care or to help a vulnerable person; and
travelling to and from work, but only where this is absolutely necessary and cannot be done from home.

That’s all - these are the only reasons you should leave your home.

You should not be meeting friends. If your friends ask you to meet, you should say No.

You should not be meeting family members who do not live in your home.

You should not be going shopping except for essentials like food and medicine - and you should do this as little as you can. And use food delivery services where you can.

If you don’t follow the rules the police will have the powers to enforce them, including through fines and dispersing gatherings.

To ensure compliance with the Government’s instruction to stay at home, we will immediately:

close all shops selling non-essential goods,​ including clothing and electronic stores and other premises including libraries, playgrounds and outdoor gyms, and places of worship;
we will stop all gatherings of more than two people in public – excluding people you live with;
and we’ll stop all social events​, including weddings, baptisms and other ceremonies, but excluding funerals.

Parks will remain open for exercise but gatherings will be dispersed.

No Prime Minister wants to enact measures like this.

I know the damage that this disruption is doing and will do to people’s lives, to their businesses and to their jobs.

And that’s why we have produced a huge and unprecedented programme of support both for workers and for business.

And I can assure you that we will keep these restrictions under constant review. We will look again in three weeks, and relax them if the evidence shows we are able to.

But at present there are just no easy options. The way ahead is hard, and it is still true that many lives will sadly be lost.

And yet it is also true that there is a clear way through.

Day by day we are strengthening our amazing NHS with 7500 former clinicians now coming back to the service.

With the time you buy - by simply staying at home - we are increasing our stocks of equipment.

We are accelerating our search for treatments.

We are pioneering work on a vaccine.

And we are buying millions of testing kits that will enable us to turn the tide on this invisible killer.

I want to thank everyone who is working flat out to beat the virus.

Everyone from the supermarket staff to the transport workers to the carers to the nurses and doctors on the frontline.

But in this fight we can be in no doubt that each and every one of us is directly enlisted.

Each and every one of us is now obliged to join together.

To halt the spread of this disease.

To protect our NHS and to save many many thousands of lives.

And I know that as they have in the past so many times.

The people of this country will rise to that challenge.

And we will come through it stronger than ever.

We will beat the coronavirus and we will beat it together.

And therefore I urge you at this moment of national emergency to stay at home, protect our NHS and save lives.

Thank you.

John McDonnell: 'A short-lived government that will go down in history for its unique combination of extremism and bumbling incompetence', Reponse to Spending Review - 2019

4 September 2019, Westminster, London, United Kingdom

Mr Speaker. Briefly let me start by welcoming another Chancellor to his new job. I believe the new Chancellor may be the first person to hold that role whose father, like my own, was a bus driver. So I would like to welcome him to his new job, but I hope that what they say is true: you wait ages for one son of a bus driver to become Chancellor of the Exchequer, only for another to come along pretty soon after.

Mr Speaker, I’m afraid that’s probably the end of what the Chancellor and I have in common. Let me thank the Chancellor for abiding by the convention of providing me with a copy of his statement.

Could I ask him, though, to take a message back to the person who obviously drafted the statement? His political master, Mr Dominic Cummings. The man who cancels the Chancellor’s own speeches, sacks his staff without telling him and has them escorted off the premises by an armed police officer.

Could he tell Mr Cummings: Do not insult the intelligence of the British people. The people will see today’s statement as the grubby electioneering stunt that it is. This is not a Spending Review as we know it. It is straight out of the Lynton Crosby handbook: Opinion Poll Politics.

The Tories have checked what are the top three or four issues in the polls and cynically judged just how little money they have to throw around to try and neutralise the concerns people have about those issues.

To come here and then try to fool us with references to people’s priorities is beyond irony. When did these extremist right-wing Tories ever put the people first? Were they putting the people first when they froze child benefit, year after year? And introduced the brutal universal credit regime?

The result this summer – according to the Childhood Trust – was children scavenging in bins for food because they didn’t have free school meals in the summer holidays.

Were they putting people first when they cut council budgets and prevented over one million elderly and disabled people getting the social care they needed?

Were they putting the people first when they cut social service budgets so much we have record numbers of children coming into care and 155 women a day turned away from refuges?

We are expected to believe that these Tories, who for years have voted for harsh, brutal austerity, have had some Damascene conversion. They treat our people with such contempt. Announcements have been dripped out over the last week or so. All designed to give the impression of a spending spree.

Announcements dictated by No10 and meekly accepted by a Chancellor too weak to conduct a full multi-year Spending Review – even before the Government’s majority disappeared yesterday. We have seen the so-called headroom which the Chancellor’s predecessor had claimed was needed to prepare for No Deal Brexit, spent instead on preparing for a General Election.

We all know the Chancellor may not be in his job very long. Maybe that’s why he felt the need to rush out a Spending Round based on figures from March rather than waiting for the Office for Budget Responsibility to tell him officially what the rest of us have known for some time; that the economy – after nine years of Tory austerity – is in bad shape and getting worse.

A full fiscal event would have meant new economic forecasts, the need for a fiscal framework to give departments security over the Parliament, allowing them to plan ahead after years of cuts.

Instead we get this sham of a Spending Review. They are claiming to be against austerity – after years of voting for it. They are claiming to be using “headroom” which he knows has largely disappeared. And yet they are still failing to deliver a real end to austerity.

Let’s take a look at some of the announcements that the Chancellor has confirmed.

For schools, the Chancellor has announced new spending of £1.8 billion next year. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has previously estimated that it would cost £3.8 billion this year alone to reverse the cuts that have been made. Was the Chancellor aware, when drawing up his Spending Round, that the Department for Education budget as a whole has been slashed by almost £10 billion in real terms since 2010? The reality is that heads will still be sending out begging letters and teachers will still buying basic materials for their classes.

£700 million was announced for children with special needs and disabilities. But does the Chancellor not know that the Local Government Association has found that councils already face a funding shortfall for SEN children of £1.2 billion by 2021? The reality is that children will still be left vulnerable and in need.

Further Education colleges are to get a one-off £400 million. Does the Chancellor think they should be grateful for that, after £3.3 billion of cuts since 2010? And the reality is that the economy will still be desperately in need of sufficient skills training.

The government’s announcement of £1.8bn spending for the NHS has already been exposed as largely a re-announcement.

Any announcement on GP waiting times is likely to turn out to be totally undeliverable following the loss of almost 600 full-time-equivalent GPs over the last year.

Any new money for local government today will be a drop in the ocean compared to the 60% of their funding which councils have lost in recent years.

What effect does the Chancellor estimate his announcement today will have on the crisis in children’s services after a 29% drop in government funding over eight years and vulnerable children left at risk?

He mentioned just now £54m of additional spending for tackling homelessness, but the Local Government Association has said that there is a funding gap of £100m this year.

The £200m he mentions for bus services is less than a third of the £645m that has been cut from bus services since 2010.

The government has claimed they are planning to recruit 20,000 more police officers but can the Chancellor tell us yet how many will actually be on the frontline? The last assessment was there would be only an additional 13,000 on the streets.

The Government has spoken of money to create another 10,000 prison places. Can the Chancellor tell us if they are the same 10,000 prison places? Promised by previous Justice Secretaries in 2016? And again in 2017? And 2018?

How many suicides, how many assaults on staff have taken place because of cuts to prison staff? And will government ever apologise to the Prison Officers Association for ignoring their warnings of the effects of staff cuts on safety in prisons?

And those are just the areas we have heard about today. What about those forgotten in the Chancellor’s opportunist one-year spending round? What about the real structural reforms to address the social care crisis which we have been waiting for years now?

A sticking plaster of a one-off billion pounds will leave the sector in the sorry state where it is now. With 1.4 million not getting the care they need and 87 people dying each day while waiting for care.

I understand that the Chancellor’s mates the bankers were pushing the other day for more tax cuts and less regulation. I hope he sent them packing.

Does the Chancellor have any words for the thousands suffering from the brutal rollout of Universal Credit?

Traditionally the Spending Review concentrates on Department Expenditure Limits rather than social security, but there is no reason why the Chancellor couldn’t have signalled the government’s intent – at least – to end the misery and hardship their policy is causing. Most shockingly of all, the Chancellor has given no sign that he understands the scale of climate emergency facing us and the urgency with which a significant Government response is needed. He mentions the issue but allocates minuscule amounts of funding incapable of addressing this existential threat.

I hope that members will remember those who got no comfort from today’s announcements in a few weeks If the government pushes ahead with their plans for tax cuts that mainly benefit the wealthy. I hope members will remember all those were deemed unimportant by the Chancellor.

Because come any election campaign, you can be sure the Labour Party will – and the voters will – remember the nine years of austerity and today’s failure act. Just as we remember being told there was no alternative. There was no money.

We all know the lines. We’ve heard them enough times now. They weren’t true then, and they aren’t true now. The majority of economists have always agreed that there was another approach the Government could have taken. And we have always argued that austerity was a political choice. Not an economic necessity.

As recently as March, the Party opposite ploughed on saying there was no alternative. To look at them now suddenly proclaiming an end to austerity. After 120,000 excess deaths, after 100 billion taken out of the economy, after the worst decade for wage growth since the mid-19th century. Just because there may be an election around the corner.

And after all that, to deliver a pathetic sum to spending departments which are on their knees is just adding insult to injury. A Government not just callous and uncaring but hypocritical as well. This isn’t a Government, it’s a racket.

Pretending to end austerity when they do nothing of the sort. Pretending to plan ahead while they plot a No Deal Brexit that would devastate parts of our economy. A Chancellor and a Prime Minister with – as my Right Honourable Friend said yesterday – no mandate, no morals and no majority.

Trying to distract us from the crumbling public services and stagnating wages they have created after a decade in charge with fantasy promises of a Brexit deal they knew they couldn’t deliver and weren’t even trying to negotiate.

A short-lived government that will go down in history for its unique combination of extremism and bumbling incompetence. A government that betrays the very people it is meant to serve. A government that will never be forgiven but will soon be forgotten.

Boris Johnson: 'We have to reconcile two novle sets of instincts', Campaign victory speech - 2019

23 July 2019, Westminster, London, United Kingdom

Thank you, Cheryl. Thank you, Charles. Thank you very much, Brandon, for a fantastic, well-organised campaign. I think it did a lot of credit, as Brandon has just said, to our party, to our values and to our ideals. But I want to begin by thanking my opponent, Jeremy. By common consent, an absolutely formidable campaigner and a great leader and a great politician.

Jeremy, in the course of 20 hustings… or hustings-style events – it was more than 3000 miles by the way, it’s about 7000 miles that we did criss-crossing the country. You’ve been friendly. You’ve been good natured. You’ve been a font of excellent ideas, all of which I propose to steal forthwith.

And above all, I want to thank our outgoing leader, Theresa May, for her extraordinary service to this party and to this country. It was a privilege to serve in her Cabinet and to see the passion and determination that she brought to the many causes that are her legacy, from equal pay for men and women to tackling the problems of mental health and racial discrimination in the criminal justice system. Thank you, Theresa. Thank you.

And I want to thank all of you, all of you here today, and obviously everybody in the Conservative party, for your hard work, for your campaigning, for your public spirit, and obviously for the extraordinary honour and privilege that you have just conferred on me.

And I know that there will be people around the place, who will question the wisdom of your decision. And there may even be some people here who still wonder what quite what they have done. And I would just point out to you that of course nobody, no one party, no one person has a monopoly of wisdom. But if you look at the history of the last 200 years of this party’s existence, you will see that it is we Conservatives who have had the best insights, I think, into human nature and in the best insights in how to manage the jostling sets of instincts in the human heart. And time and again, it is to us that the people of this country have turned to get that balance right between the instincts to own your own house, your own home, to earn and spend your own money, to look after your own family.

Good instincts, proper instincts, noble instincts. And the equally noble instinct to share and to give everyone a fair chance in life. And to look after the poorest and the neediest. And to build a great society. And on the whole, in the last 200 years, it is we Conservatives who have understood best how to encourage those instincts to work together in harmony, to promote the good of the whole country.

And today, at this pivotal moment in our history, we again have to reconcile two sets of instincts, two noble sets of instincts.

And I want to thank all of you, all of you here today, and obviously everybody in the Conservative party, for your hard work, for your campaigning, for your public spirit, and obviously for the extraordinary honour and privilege that you have just conferred on me.

And I know that there will be people around the place, who will question the wisdom of your decision. And there may even be some people here who still wonder what quite what they have done. And I would just point out to you that of course nobody, no one party, no one person has a monopoly of wisdom. But if you look at the history of the last 200 years of this party’s existence, you will see that it is we Conservatives who have had the best insights, I think, into human nature and in the best insights in how to manage the jostling sets of instincts in the human heart. And time and again, it is to us that the people of this country have turned to get that balance right between the instincts to own your own house, your own home, to earn and spend your own money, to look after your own family.

Good instincts, proper instincts, noble instincts. And the equally noble instinct to share and to give everyone a fair chance in life. And to look after the poorest and the neediest. And to build a great society. And on the whole, in the last 200 years, it is we Conservatives who have understood best how to encourage those instincts to work together in harmony, to promote the good of the whole country.

And today, at this pivotal moment in our history, we again have to reconcile two sets of instincts, two noble sets of instincts. Between the deep desire for friendship and free trade and mutual support in security and defence between Britain and our European partners. And the simultaneous desire, equally deep and heartfelt for democratic self-government in this country.

And of course, there are some people who say that they’re irreconcilable. And it just can’t be done. And indeed, I read in my Financial Times this morning, devoted reader that I am. Seriously, it’s a great, great, great, great British, great British brand.

I read in my Financial Times this morning that there is no incoming leader, no incoming leader has ever faced such a daunting set of circumstances, it said. Well, I look at you this morning and I ask myself, do you look daunted? Do you feel daunted? I don’t think you look remotely daunted to me. And I think that we know that we can do it and that the people of this country are trusting in us to do it. And we know that we will do it. And we know the mantra of the campaign that has just gone by in case you’ve forgotten it. You probably have. It is: Deliver Brexit. Unite the country and defeat Jeremy Corbyn. And that is what we’re going to do. We’re going to defeat Jeremy Corbyn.

I know, I know, some wag has already pointed out that deliver, unite and defeat was not the perfect acronym for an election campaign, since unfortunately it spells ‘dud’. But they forgot the final ‘E’ my friends. ‘E’ for energise. And I say to all the doubters: dude, we are going to energise the country. We’re going to get Brexit done. On October 31st, we are going to take advantage of all the opportunities that it will bring in a new spirit of can do.

And we are once again going to believe in ourselves and what we can achieve. And like some slumbering giant, we are going to rise and ping off the guy ropes of self-doubt and negativity with better education, better infrastructure, more police, fantastic full-fibre broadband sprouting in every household. We are going to unite this amazing country and we are going to take it forward. I thank you all very much for the incredible honour that you’ve just done me. I will work flat out from now on with my team that I will build.

I hope in the next few days to repay your confidence. But in the meantime, the campaign is over and the work begins. Thank you all very much.

And of course, there are some people who say that they’re irreconcilable. And it just can’t be done. And indeed, I read in my Financial Times this morning, devoted reader that I am. Seriously, it’s a great, great, great, great British, great British brand.

I read in my Financial Times this morning that there is no incoming leader, no incoming leader has ever faced such a daunting set of circumstances, it said. Well, I look at you this morning and I ask myself, do you look daunted? Do you feel daunted? I don’t think you look remotely daunted to me. And I think that we know that we can do it and that the people of this country are trusting in us to do it. And we know that we will do it. And we know the mantra of the campaign that has just gone by in case you’ve forgotten it. You probably have. It is: Deliver Brexit. Unite the country and defeat Jeremy Corbyn. And that is what we’re going to do. We’re going to defeat Jeremy Corbyn.

I know, I know, some wag has already pointed out that deliver, unite and defeat was not the perfect acronym for an election campaign, since unfortunately it spells ‘dud’. But they forgot the final ‘E’ my friends. ‘E’ for energise. And I say to all the doubters: dude, we are going to energise the country. We’re going to get Brexit done. On October 31st, we are going to take advantage of all the opportunities that it will bring in a new spirit of can do.

And we are once again going to believe in ourselves and what we can achieve. And like some slumbering giant, we are going to rise and ping off the guy ropes of self-doubt and negativity with better education, better infrastructure, more police, fantastic full-fibre broadband sprouting in every household. We are going to unite this amazing country and we are going to take it forward. I thank you all very much for the incredible honour that you’ve just done me. I will work flat out from now on with my team that I will build.

I hope in the next few days to repay your confidence. But in the meantime, the campaign is over and the work begins. Thank you all very much.