Tag Archives: wera hobhouse mp

Wera Hobhouse, Wendy Chamberlain and Christine Jardine on Black History Month

By The Voice | Sun 25th October 2020 - 2:55 pm

This week, Wera Hobhouse, as Lib Dem Equalities spokesperson, too part in the Black History Month debate in the House of Commons. Watch her speech here:

I have been listening to and speaking with members of the black community in Bath.

We need to reject and dismantle the culture war that is being actively promoted in our society. It robs our country compassion and is the death of a tolerant, liberal society. pic.twitter.com/Yzc2U3zEqR

— Wera Hobhouse MP 🔶 (@Wera_Hobhouse) October 21, 2020

Christine Jardine also made an intervention, talking about the history of the streets in Glasgow.

On that very point, we have talked before about how in so many communities in this country there are statues, streets and so on that are named after slave owners and colonialists. People like me who come from Glasgow are immensely proud that Nelson Mandela Place is named after Nelson Mandela, but we are completely unaware of the history of the names of the other streets around it. That is the sort of thing we need to attack when we look at education and black history.

Wendy Chamberlain also highlighted the unpleasant history of the streets where she grew up.

The full text of Wera’s and Wendy’s speeches is below.

The debate had one particularly remarkable part where Conservative MP Bim Afolami was basically saying that he had not experienced any problems. Labour MP Tulip Siddiq pointed out that he’d gone to Eton, before acknowledging and recognising her own privileged middle class background. She highlighted the importance of taking an intersectional approach.

Posted in News | Also tagged black history month, christine jardine mp and wendy chamberlain mp | 21 Comments

LibLink: Wera Hobhouse – Without proportional representation, there’s no future for moderate politics in Brexit Britain

By Web Magpie | Fri 3rd January 2020 - 10:10 am

Embed from Getty Images

Over on the Independent, Wera Hobhouse MP argues that the whole EU referendum and ensuing mess came about due to the faults of the First Past the Post voting system, and has now left us with a government elected by 44% of voters which can deliver any Brexit it wants, despite 52% of voters voting for parties committed to a People’s Vote or revoking Article 50:

Posted in LibLink | Also tagged 2019 general election, brexit, eu referendum and proportional representation | 49 Comments

Wera Hobhouse: The road to stopping Brexit

By Wera Hobhouse MP | Thu 6th December 2018 - 4:47 pm

As an MP, do I have to vote for any Brexit that is put in front of me in parliament?

My duty in our representative democracy is to listen to the people and respect their views. It is also to use my own informed judgement of what is the best for my constituents and the country as a whole.

So to the question, my answer is no. If any Brexit brought to parliament is, in my judgement bad for my constituents and my country, I should not vote for it.

The Prime Minister is using a different argument. She says we have to leave the EU even if it bad for the country because the people voted for it. She suggests that the dutiful thing for MPs in light of the 2016 referendum is to vote for something that we believe is bad for this country. On the contrary, we have a duty to do the opposite.

Does this mean we defy the will of the people? No, because British democracy is a representative democracy and not just a direct democracy.

What we MPs cannot do on our own, however, in light of the referendum in 2016, is to choose to stay in the EU. We can legitimately reject any particular Brexit deal in accordance with our judgement but we cannot move from there and cancel Brexit by ourselves. This is the true meaning of the referendum result.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged brexit | 23 Comments