FIVE years ago I nearly packed all this politics stuff up.
I had campaigned for Brexit but was stuck in a Labour Party that refused to respect the result.
Like many Leavers, I was thinking, “What is the point of voting?”
All this was made worse by the behaviour in the party I used to represent.
Being in the Labour Party was, as MP Rosie Duffield has said, like being in an abusive relationship.
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Nothing was ever good enough — it was all about controlling what you thought and what you said.
Debate or disagreement was not allowed, and we were encouraged to show visceral hatred for the Tories.
There’s no doubt that Labour is the real nasty party.
Labour’s culture is toxic but when I left it had become clear to me that the party has turned its back on the people it was set up to support — the working class.
This is a party that is more concerned with Karl Marx than illegal migration, more interested in communism than the cost of living, and more worried about pronouns than the people’s priorities.
I know what it’s like to struggle
Don’t forget who is really pulling the strings.
When Labour politicians are not parroting their union paymasters’ latest lines, they’re appeasing their 400,000 activists.
Remember, these are the Marxist middle-class, loony liberals who joined the party just to elect Jeremy Corbyn as leader.
Their members have nothing in common with Labour’s traditional base, the working class.
Their members want to overturn Brexit and deny democracy.
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They care more about Hamas, Venezuela and Cuba than Halifax, the Valleys, and Cleethorpes.
They endorse the identity politics and woke Twitter trends that cultivate cancel culture.
When I challenged this in the Labour Party, I was called a racist.
When I challenged women-only election shortlists, I was labelled a sexist.
Meanwhile Keir Starmer can’t even say what a woman is.
And when I challenged the idea that someone on £30,000 shouldn’t need to rely on foodbanks, I was lambasted as “out of touch”.
They didn’t care that I was a single parent for 17 years with two boys.
I know what it’s like to put your last fiver in the gas meter, to have to sell your car because you can’t afford it. I know what it’s like to struggle.
The thought of a Labour government terrifies me.
As I sit on the green benches in the Commons looking at the Opposition, it reminds me that we must do all we can to keep them there as they have hundreds of would-be MPs waiting for the next election who are undoubtedly the same out-of-touch type that will run our great country into the ground while apologising for every part of our history.
It ain’t perfect, but the Tory Party allows free speech and encourages personal responsibility.
Last week, before PM Rishi Sunak appointed me, I was interviewed by a magazine.
I told them that I thought we should have the death penalty for people like the terrorists who killed Lee Rigby.
The response was predictable and revealing.
The London media, people with hashtags and flags in their Twitter biographies and lefty politicians were outraged at what is, in my neck of the woods, a completely mainstream view.
By contrast, my bosses — the PM and Conservative Party Chairman — said that while they didn’t agree with me, the party was a broad church and that I was hardly expressing a fringe view.
This is why I have found my natural home with the Conservatives.
Proud to be member of the Conservative Party
Under Rishi we have given the green light to open a new coal mine, despite all the nonsense being spouted by the tree-huggers like Ed Miliband.
And the PM has promised to bring in new legislation to stop illegal immigrants claiming asylum.
These kinds of polices are sweet music to the ears of Conservatives like me and the first-time Tory voters from 2019.
As a former coal miner, I have been on a journey from the pits to Parliament.
I am proud to be a member of the Conservative Party and even prouder to call Conservative MPs my friends.
And now, as Deputy Party Chairman, I can use the lessons I’ve learnt along the way to keep Labour out of Downing Street.
We have 18 months to halve inflation, grow the economy, get debt down, cut NHS waiting lists and stop the small boats.
Get all that right and I predict another five years for us, leaving the Labour loonies in the rightful place on Opposition benches.
I only wish I’d left Labour sooner.
