After a campaign where she promised commitment to the interests of local residents, the MP for Fareham & Waterlooville, (re-elected with a  majority reduced from 26086 to 6079) flew immediately to Washington to continue her cultural campaign in a speech to the National Conservatism Conference (NATCON) and subsequently repeated her remarks via a transatlantic link to a Westminster conference of Popular Conservatism where she spoke of the need to insulate government bodies from what she called the “lunatic woke virus”.

The immediacy of her attention-switch from apparent local concerns to distant and divisive hate-filled ideology is a sharp reminder of why Conservative ranks in the UK are now much diminished.  Even Conservative voices (with the unelected exception of Rees-Mogg) were united in condemnation of her views.  The extremists argue that the Conservative cause was lost because they were insufficiently extreme – whereas the overwhelming common judgement was a preference for competent delivery rather than divisive dogma. 

Fifty years before her family were welcomed to this country as economic migrants, we had discrimination and prejudice against LGBT minorities on a shameful level.  We have progressed a long way since then.   The residents of Fareham & Waterlooville (especially the third who didn’t bother to vote) must be reminded that, if unchallenged, our MP’s toxic attitudes will continue to poison our society.

* David Brunnen is media liaison officer for Fareham Liberal Democrats. He writes on Municipal Autonomy, Intelligent Communities, Sustainability & Digital Challenges.