Yvette Cooper
MP for Pontefract, Castleford and Knottingley · Labour · United Kingdom
“NATO has been the cornerstone of Euro-Atlantic security for over 75 years, protecting more than a billion people, but to ensure it remains as strong for the next 75 years, it needs to respond to changing threats.”
“He may have seen that the Prime Minister and the Canadian Prime Minister put out a joint statement over the last couple of days to set out how we seek to work together to ensure that those initiatives, which do slightly different things, can combine and collaborate to ensure that we get the best possible impact.”
“The world must not fail the people of Sudan again. Last week, the UK convened an urgent debate at the United Nations Human Rights Council. A UK-penned resolution condemned atrocities, called for an urgent UN fact finding inquiry and urged the RSF to comply with international law and halt this attack, urging both the RSF and the Sudanese A…”
“We agree about the nature of the increasingly dangerous world we live in and the importance of us being able to defend ourselves and maintain our security. We have committed to reaching the 3.5% commitment on defence, but that is part of a 5% commitment that was made to cover broader defence and security intelligence.”
“I did take the opportunity to discuss the situation in both the west bank and Gaza with some of our allies and partners. I am deeply worried that last year’s 20-point plan for Gaza—which was hugely important and which we supported, as did the whole world—is at risk of running into the ground.”
“As I have said, our security since the second world war has very much depended on the NATO alliance, which has always been a defensive alliance that has built its strength through deterrence. Deterrence is immensely important. When we reached the end of the cold war in 1990, there was at that point a substantial peace dividend.”
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“The hon. Member is right that there are standards that have to be followed. When the issues are around important Government business, it is a problem when somebody has breached those standards to the point of effectively being sacked and then is reappointed just six days later. That is what people across the country will not understand.”
“However, there is also a serious question whether the Home Secretary has just made things worse by ignoring legal advice and allowing dangerous overcrowding, leading to even more last-minute inappropriate procurement and running up substantial legal liabilities when she should have an alternative plan to cut the backlog and cut hotel use instead.”
“We have deep concerns about how the Government could have allowed this situation to develop in the first place, why they badly failed to crack down on the criminal gangs that have proliferated in the channel and why they allowed Home Office decision making to collapse, so that only half the number of decisions are being taken each year compared with six years ago and only 4% of last year’s small boat arrivals had their claims determined, so that there is now a huge backlog of cases that has led to overcrowding and the last-minute use of costly hotels in inappropriate locations.”
“Yesterday morning, her successor and predecessor, now the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, said that he had had clear advice—legal and policy advice—about dangerous overcrowding at Manston, about being in breach of the law, and about the need to take emergency measures, which he then took.”
“My hon. Friend is right. There has been a real sense over many years now that the respect for standards in public life from the Government and the Conservative party has been deteriorating and has been undermining standards in our important institutions. The Prime Minister promised us that there would be something different. Instead, what we have is more of the same. The Cabinet Office has already recognised that the Home Secretary broke sections 2.1 and 2.14 of the ministerial code. There are further serious concerns that she may have broken it a third time and also ignored legal advice that the Home Office was breaking the law.”
“The right hon. Lady makes an important point, because the standards in our public life and public institutions have depended on people respecting them and on people across public life believing in them and taking them immensely seriously. That is why it is so corrosive when, bit by bit, they are undermined, and why it is so damaging when a new Prime Minister who promised us he would be so different from his predecessors is simply reinforcing the same problems and the same damaging situation.”
“She was warned on 1 October and again on 4 October, but she still failed to take the emergency measures that her successor was forced to take. She told the House: “I have never ignored legal advice.” —[ Official Report , 31 October 2022; Vol. 721, c. 639.] The advice made clear what the law said and how things would get worse unless she acted, so what on earth is her definition of the word “ignored”? The definition I looked up says, “To disregard intentionally”, and that appears to be exactly what she did. If the Home Secretary wants to claim it was not intentional, but somehow accidental—that she just did not really have a clue what the consequences were of her inaction—I think that makes things worse.”
“My right hon. Friend makes a very important point. I hope the Select Committee will be able to get answers, because if the then Home Secretary, now the Business Secretary, the right hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps), was clear on 20 October that overcrowding was getting worse and that emergency measures were needed to stop the Home Office breaking the law, why on earth did the current, and former, Home Secretary fail to act in her meeting on 19 October, just the day before—a meeting on Manston that she told us about in her resignation letter to my right hon. Friend? It has been reported that the Home Secretary was warned in the middle of September about the deteriorating circumstances, the fact that things were going to get worse and the high risk of successful legal challenge because the Home Office was breaking the law.”
“Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will recall that what happened at Napier was that the Government ended up with a huge outbreak of more than 200 covid cases, at the height of a covid crisis, because they were failing to follow basic public health rules and requirements. To be honest, it was an incident that the Home Office again does not seem to have learned from, as we have had outbreaks of diphtheria, MRSA and scabies at Manston. Frankly, if the Home Office and the Government want to solve this properly, they need to address the total collapse in decision making, with just 14,000 decisions being made a year, which is half the number being decided just five or six years ago. That huge backlog has increased as a result of Government legislation that has added to the bureaucracy and made those delays much worse.”
“The issue is about whether or not the Home Secretary is continuing to breach the ministerial code. We know that on 19 October she had already broken the ministerial code twice, and she may have done so again in a subsequent meeting, also on 19 October. How many times can a Minister break the ministerial code in a single day and still be reappointed six days later?”
“The important point here is that Ministers have a responsibility for public safety, security and meeting and upholding standards. Part of the reason we are seeking this information and these facts about the decisions that were made is to find out whether any of these issues and concerns that have been raised in the Home Office were raised with the Prime Minister at the time, or whether the way in which the Home Secretary had behaved was raising concerns within the Cabinet Office and with the Cabinet Secretary.”
“The right hon. Gentleman is rewinding 12 years. We have had 12 years with a Conservative Government in place, and we have been very clear that this is about exceptional circumstances. He will know that a similar motion was supported by this House about Members of the other place, similarly in exceptional circumstances. We have also been clear that if there are any security concerns around the advice or information given to the Prime Minister, that should be shared instead with the Intelligence and Security Committee—that is the responsible way to do it.”
“Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton), against the Cabinet Office Minister, the Minister without Portfolio, the right hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Gavin Williamson), which also involves very serious allegations, including about the use of language. We should remember, too, that that Cabinet Office Minister was previously sacked from the Government by the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) for leaking information from the National Security Council. He has now been reappointed to the Cabinet Office—the very office that is responsible for supporting the National Security Council and leading on cyber-security. This matters—maintaining standards, maintaining the ministerial code and showing leadership on security matters.”
“That is the problem. We have these reports in the papers and the allegations that have been made, and we must bear in mind that this is not simply about the security lapses that the Home Secretary herself has recognised and admitted to; it is also about reports of further leak investigations during her time as Attorney General. We are simply asking for factual information about whether or not these were raised as concerns and whether or not this was an issue of concern for the Cabinet Office and the Cabinet Secretary when the Prime Minister made his reappointment decision. This goes to a wider problem about the way in which the Prime Minister appears to have been taking his decisions. The Government have confirmed that the Prime Minister knew about the complaint from the former Chief Whip, the right hon.”
“If this is all nonsense, then Government Members should support the motion and show us that there is not a problem—show us that the Prime Minister does take this incredibly seriously, has asked the right questions and has got the right reassurances. He has only been in post two weeks, and already we have this chaos. He said he wants to stand up for integrity, so enforce the ministerial code. He said he wants professionalism, so appoint people who can do the job. He said he wants accountability, so support this motion and show some accountability to the House.”
“Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson), at the height of the Skripal crisis, as I said earlier, wandered off to a Russian villa in Italy, met an ex-KGB agent, took an unknown guest, did not report it to officials and still cannot remember whether Government business was discussed. The right hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss) was accused of using her private phone for sensitive Government business, and the right hon. Member for Richmond (Yorks) (Rishi Sunak) has defended them all, reappointing as his Home Secretary someone his own Back Benchers refer to as “leaky”.”
“My hon. Friend makes a really important point: national security matters for all of us. This is a time when the national security threats that our country faces have changed. We face new threats from hostile states who wish to do our democracy harm. We face cyber threats from those who want to undermine our national interest. Cabinet Ministers are the custodians of that national interest, and we need all of them to take that seriously and not be careless about the risks that we face and the impact of a lack of leadership on these kinds of issue. Sadly, the reality is that we have had a series of Conservative Prime Ministers who have not taken these issues seriously. The right hon.”
“The Minister is very kind in giving way. He will know that it has been reported in the papers that the Home Secretary, when she was Attorney General, was interviewed as part of several leak inquiries. Has the Minister seen the conclusions of those leak inquiries, and did the Prime Minister see the conclusions of those leak inquiries before he made the appointment decision?”
“When we have one Prime Minister who puts security at risk to go to Italy for a party, another who allegedly used a personal phone for contacting Government Ministers, and a third who is defending his predecessors and reappointing as Home Secretary someone described on the Government’s own Back Benches as “leaky”, that undermines our national security. Our national security is too important for this kind of chaos, so what will the Minister do to ensure that the Government get a grip?”
“Does he agree how incredibly unhelpful it is to our security services to have national security issues briefed in a way that appears to be about putting party interest before the national interest, and that it does not serve democracy if all these issues are not taken seriously by the person most in charge of defending our national security—the Prime Minister, followed by the Home Secretary he appoints? Yes, we will support the Minister’s taskforce, but he will need to show us that there is some kind of grip at the heart of this Government on attitudes towards security.”
“And we still do not have any answer to the serious allegations about potential leaks when the Home Secretary was Attorney General, which include a briefing to The Daily Telegraph in January about an injunction that the Attorney General was seeking against the BBC in a security service case, which was then used in court to argue against the injunction. Again, if this is a new era, can the Security Minister give us a categoric response as to whether the Home Secretary when she was Attorney General—or her adviser—was involved in that leak? The Minister will know, too, that there have been briefings and stories around with national security implications.”
“Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Gavin Williamson), who was sacked after a leak investigation over Huawei; and he reappointed the Home Secretary, the right hon. and learned Member for Fareham (Suella Braverman), just six days after she was sacked over a security lapse and who yesterday admitted she had used her personal email not just once but six times in the space of 43 days, all apparently because she could not make her Government IT work properly or did not have it with her. That is not adequate.”
“If this is a new era of defending democracy and security, can the Minister tell us whether the former Prime Minister took his personal phone with him on his Italy party weekend? Who was his guest and what action is now being taken to prevent that kind of thing ever happening again? Can the Minister tell us, too, whether that Prime Minister’s successor, the next Foreign Secretary and Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss) used her private phone for Government business, including contacting other international leaders? If she did, what is being done to prevent that ever happening again? There are now questions about the current Prime Minister: he reappointed to the Cabinet as the Minister without Portfolio the right hon.”
“If we take the last Prime Minister but one, who left office just a few months ago, the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) took a trip without officials at the height of the Skripal crisis to a villa in Italy described by locals as the “Russian mountain” where he met ex-KGB agent Alexander Lebedev. He did not declare it to Foreign Office officials on his return and says he does not remember what was discussed. He had a guest with him, but he travelled home alone and has never said who the guest was. He reportedly took his phone with the same number that he still did not change even when he became Prime Minister and sent private messages on it.”
“Can the Minister clarify that the taskforce will work on how to protect all our democratic institutions against foreign interference? Will it look at cyber-security and, in particular, the way the Government have been operating? While I welcome the seriousness of the statement and the seriousness with which the Minister has delivered it, he will know that it is a far cry from the way successive Cabinet Ministers have responded, and from the lack of seriousness and the carelessness and complacency that we have seen on some of these cyber-security issues. Conservative Ministers were all warned in guidance after the 2019 election: “You should not use your personal devices, email and communications applications for Government business at any classification”. Yet many of them at the highest level ignored it.”
“I welcome the statement from the Minister for Security. I know this is an issue that he personally takes very seriously. It is the first job of every Government to defend our national security from hostile states who wish to do our country harm and who strain every sinew to do so with the most sophisticated technology and resources, and from malign actors and extremists, both here and abroad, who want to do us harm and undermine both our democracy and everything we stand for. We pay tribute to the remarkable work of our intelligence and security services who work so hard to keep us safe. I welcome the Minister’s announcement. We will support the taskforce and its work to defend democracy against a wide range of threats. I welcome the work on physical threats. We remember with great sadness our lost friends Jo Cox and David Amess.”
“It has been less than a week since the Home Secretary was reappointed and less than a fortnight since she was first forced to resign for breaching the ministerial code, and every day since her reappointment there have been more stories about possible security or ministerial code breaches. How is anybody supposed to have confidence in her, given the serious responsibilities of the Home Secretary to stand up for our national security, for security standards and for public safety? The Prime Minister promised that this would be a Government of “integrity, professionalism and accountability”. Is the Home Secretary not letting everyone down and failing on all those counts?”
“Those are very important, but her statement is undermined by her own disregard for security. Her letter today makes it clear that the incident over which she resigned was not a one-off and that, contrary to her previous claims that she reported the breach “rapidly” as soon as she realised, she instead had to be challenged several times by one of her colleagues. She has also not answered the crucial questions about security breaches while she was Attorney General. Can she tell us whether she was involved in a leak to The Daily Telegraph , reported in that paper on 21 January, on information about Attorney General action on a case involving the security service? Has she sent any other Government documents by WhatsApp, Telegram or other social media?”
“There are also legal obligations, including under the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 and the Asylum Support (Amendment) Regulations 2018. Can the Home Secretary confirm that she was advised repeatedly that she was breaking the law by failing to agree to those plans? One of the meetings on Manston was on 19 October. Can the Home Secretary confirm that she refused those proposals on that date—the same day that she broke sections 2.3 and 1.4 of the ministerial code? Can she tell us whether, in fact, she breached the ministerial code, which provides for Ministers’ abiding by the law, three times in a single day? How is anyone supposed to have confidence in her as a Home Secretary given those serious issues? The Home Secretary referred in her statement to security checks.”
“On the Rwanda plan, can the Home Secretary confirm that she has spent an extra £20 million, on top of the £120 million already spent on a policy that she has herself described as “failing” and that her officials have described as “unenforceable” and having a “high risk of fraud”? Is it not now time to drop that unethical and unworkable scheme and to put the money into tackling the backlogs and the criminal gangs instead? Let me ask the Home Secretary about her own decisions. There are very serious allegations now being reported that the Home Secretary was warned by officials and other Ministers that she was acting outside the law by failing to provide alternative accommodation. Can she confirm that she turned down contingency plans that she was offered that would have reduced overcrowding, as the reports say?”
“Can the Home Secretary confirm that the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 and changes to immigration rules have added further bureaucracy and delays, leading to tens of thousands more people waiting in asylum accommodation and more than £100 million extra on asylum accommodation bills because the Government’s policies are pushing up the use of hotels and the increase in delays? There has also been a total failure to prevent a huge proliferation of gangs in the channel. Why has the Home Secretary refused our calls for a major new National Crime Agency unit with hundreds of additional specialist officers to work with Europol and others to crack down on the gangs, as well as the urgent work needed with France to get a proper agreement in place?”
“Conditions there have been described as inhumane, with risks of fire, disorder and infection, there are confirmed diphtheria outbreaks, reports of scabies and MRSA outbreaks, outbreaks of violence and untrained staff. The Home Secretary said nothing about what she was doing to address those immediate public health crises or the issues of untrained staff. Behind those problems are deeper failures in the Government’s policies on asylum and channel crossings. Decision making has collapsed: the Home Office has taken just 14,000 initial asylum decisions in the past 12 months, compared with 28,000 six years ago. Some 96% of the small boat arrivals last year have still not had a decision and initial decisions alone are taking more than 400 days on this Conservative Government’s watch.”
“I thank the Home Secretary for her statement. Yesterday’s petrol bomb attack on the Western Jet Foil Centre was truly appalling. I am sure the whole House will condemn it in the strongest possible terms. I echo the Home Secretary’s tribute to the emergency services and Border Force staff who responded. However, I must ask her: can she tell me whether counter-terror police and counter-extremism units are involved in the investigation? It does not make sense for them not to be, so why are they not? I turn to the dreadful conditions at Manston. Four thousand people are now on a site designed to accommodation 1,600 people, with some families there for weeks.”
“Will he now accept that these expensive gimmick policies, such as spending £140 million on a Rwanda policy that is unworkable and unethical, and that the Home Secretary herself has said is failing, is the wrong approach and that he should instead put that money into boosting the National Crime Agency and tackling the criminal gangs? And when will the backlog be cleared? This is too important for the kind of chaos we have had for the last few years.”
“Reports say it is now taking, on average, 480 days to make an initial decision, which plays into the hands of people traffickers and people smugglers. We have also had reports of hundreds of children going missing, soaring backlogs, huge hotel bills and security and fingerprinting failures, as well as the devastating reports of what is happening at Manston, including the chief inspector saying Manston is dangerous and describing an Afghan family who have been in a marquee for 32 days. This follows damning independent reports on the Government’s handling of this, including their rhetorical and expensive gimmicks that do not actually solve the problem. The Minister’s response sounded complacent, so can he confirm that the Home Secretary was previously given options to ease the situation at Manston and refused to act?”
“I welcome the Immigration Minister and congratulate him on his appointment, and I thank the Cahir of the Home Affairs Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson), for securing this urgent question. The Government’s handling of the dangerous channel crossings has been disastrous. There has been a huge proliferation of criminal gangs operating in the channel and a failure to put the requisite policing and cross-border co-operation in place. We have seen a big increase in dangerous boat crossings, putting thousands of lives at risk, which everyone should be working to stop. And there has been a collapse in asylum decision making, with 14,000 decisions a year compared with 28,000 initial decisions just six years ago.”
“The Minister is a former policing Minister; does he think that if police officers breached their code of ethics and were sacked or forced to resign, they should then be reappointed to their jobs six days later because they said sorry, or is it just one rule for the Cabinet and another for everyone else? Everyone knows this was a grubby deal to get a coronation, to put party before country, but national security is too important for this.”
“How is anyone supposed to believe that she is such a novice that she did not know exactly what she was doing, and if she really is that much of a novice, why on earth are the rest of us supposed to trust her with our national security? It has been reported that she sent this as an error of judgment because she was tired after going on an early-morning raid. Is the Home Office just supposed to block her phone and email if she has been up half the night because she might do stupid things while she is tired? There are suggestions that the Home Secretary while she was Attorney General was investigated for a leak of information relating to the Security Service; is that true?”
“The Home Secretary is responsible for national security, so has the Home Office, the Cabinet Office or the Security Service now undertaken an investigation of her security breaches to establish how many others there have been? If not, may I urge the Minister to ensure that that happens as a matter of urgency? What security clearance has the Home Secretary been given? Does she still have access to the most sensitive documents and information, and did the Cabinet Secretary warn against her reappointment? She has been Attorney General, she has been a Minister on and off for four years, so she knows the rules about Government documents, yet she sent one to her own private email, to someone outside the Government, and also copied it by accident to someone else entirely.”
“My questions are about security breaches and the protection of our national security. They are questions to the Home Secretary, who was here just five minutes ago and who then left. Yesterday the Prime Minister promised “integrity, professionalism and accountability”, yet the Government have discarded the ministerial code and reappointed someone who breached core professional standards and has now run away from basic accountability to this House. It is the same old Tory chaos, and it is letting the country down. I have questions for the Home Secretary that the Government need to answer. The Home Secretary accepted that she had sent an official document via her personal email to someone who was not authorised to see it. Is that the only time she has done that? Has she shared other documents, or other sensitive information?”
“and learned Lady’s resignation letter was in fact factually correct, because her account was different from briefings to the media and the statement by the Minister for the Cabinet Office last week. May I ask you, Mr Deputy Speaker, to help us to get urgent answers to these questions? The Home Secretary has access to the most sensitive information of all, relating to our national security. We cannot have someone careless and slapdash in that job. How on earth does it meet standards of integrity and professionalism to reappoint someone who has just broken the ministerial code, and has just breached all standards of professional behaviour in a great office of state? It looks as if the new prime minister has put party before country. Our national security and public safety are too important for this.”
“On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. At noon, the new Prime Minister promised “integrity, professionalism and accountability”. At 5 pm, he reappointed the former Home Secretary, who resigned from the post just one week ago, saying that she had broken the ministerial code and admitting that she had sent confidential documents outside Government from a private email. In the urgent question last week, I raised a series of questions about whether there had been an official audit to check what other documents the former, and current, Home Secretary might have circulated from personal emails, because there were suggestions in the media that there had been others; and whether the right hon.”
“I therefore ask the Home Secretary to answer my five urgent questions now, and to recognise that we owe it to the thousands of victims and survivors who have spoken out, but also to the millions of children in the current generation who are still at risk of abuse, to ensure that this inquiry leaves a lasting legacy to protect our children.”
“According to reports over the weekend, hundreds of asylum-seeking children have disappeared. When his own Department is failing in the most basic child protection and safeguarding, the Home Secretary will understand that his words today are not enough. What action has he taken since he saw those reports over the weekend? I know the Home Secretary will say that he is new in his post, but he will understand that that is part of the concern. This report is too important to get lost in all the political changes that have been taking place and all the confusion within Government.”
“Thirdly, everyone has been expecting the inquiry to recommend a mandatory duty to report child sexual abuse, and Labour has been calling for that since 2014. May I urge the Home Secretary to announce that he will support it straight away, and send a strong signal to those across the sector? Fourthly, he referred to the criminal justice system. As he will know, the charge rate for child sexual abuse has dropped from 32% in 2015 to 12% last year. Will he take urgent action to prosecute dangerous criminals, because that has been getting worse? Fifthly, the Home Secretary’s own Department has responsibility for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, but just last week the independent inspectorate found that they were being placed in unsuitable hotels whose staff had not even been subject to Disclosure and Barring Service checks.”
“Can he confirm that it will definitely complete its remaining stages next week and that its progress to the House of Lords will be accelerated, because this is urgent? Can he also confirm that the National Crime Agency will not have to make the 20% staff cuts that his predecessors asked it to draw up? Secondly, the report says that “significant reductions in funding of public services” after 2010, when referrals were rising, are one the key factors that have had “a deleterious impact on responses to child sexual abuse.” Does the Home Secretary accept that that damage was done, and is he acting now to ensure that child protection services do not have to pay the price of his party’s mini-Budget when the public spending announcements are made next week?”
“The Home Secretary’s response today is not strong enough and does not go far enough, because this is not just a historic inquiry; the report makes clear that child sexual abuse is endemic and increasing. There are children at risk today, and there are basic child protection issues that are getting worse and require action now, in advance of the Government’s full response to the inquiry. First, the report refers to “the explosion in online-facilitated child sexual abuse”, including grooming and the online streaming of the rape of babies and children. The Home Secretary did not really mention online harms, and, as he will know, the Online Safety Bill has been repeatedly delayed.”
“It was a failure to listen, a failure to believe and a failure to act on the part of institutions that, through generations, were found to have protected their own reputation rather than protecting children and to have put deference to authority above the basic duty of care to children, whom they badly let down. I and my party join the Home Secretary and the Government in their deep apology towards those who were so badly let down by state institutions that should have kept them safe. We are truly sorry. The inquiry recommends major changes in child protection and in support for victims. The Home Secretary has rightly committed himself to overseeing a radical improvement in the way in which this crime is dealt with and prevented, and that is welcome, but I have stood at this Dispatch Box and heard similar promises before.”
“I welcome the new Home Secretary to his post and thank him for the advance copy of his statement. I join him in paying tribute to the victims and survivors who pressed for the inquiry and who have shown great bravery and strength in telling their stories and speaking out to seek justice, to seek truth and to seek protection for others. I thank the inquiry team for their work. This is a deeply serious report about one of the worst imaginable crimes, the sexual abuse and exploitation of children—the violence, pain and terror that they have described; the degradation, the violation and the consequences that they have felt throughout their lives; and the deep failure of the institutions and people in power who were supposed to protect them.”
“What we know is that the former Home Secretary has been running her ongoing leadership campaign while the current one is too busy to come to the House because he is doing his spreadsheets on the numbers for whoever he is backing to come next. But who is taking decisions on our national security? It is not the Prime Minister, nor the past or current Home Secretaries. Borders, security and policing are too important for that instability, just as people’s livelihoods are too important for the economic instability that the Conservative party has created. It is not fair on people. To quote the former Home Secretary, this is indeed a total “coalition of chaos”. Why should the country have to put up with this for a single extra day?”