Birmingham Yardley MP tweets news – then confirms it
Jess Phillips, Birmingham Yardley MP and fan of Jacob Rees-Mogg, has stated publicly that she will not vote to bring about a general election before the 31 October deadline for the UK to leave the EU. Boris Johnson may put a vote to Parliament to call an early general election and probably faces a no-confidence vote in an attempt by the Labour Party to prevent the no-deal Brexit toward which he is steering the country.
To call an early general election, Johnson would require a two-thirds majority of MPs in a vote to trigger it. Phillips stated, during a Twitter discussion of the possibility that Johnson might table such a motion, that she would not vote for it:
When one of the others in the discussion asked her specifically, she confirmed it:
Boris Johnson is taking the UK to a no-deal Brexit that most commentators consider would be hugely damaging. Jess Phillips wants to prevent a no-deal Brexit.
Yet, in her own words and in spite of the millions suffering hardship and anguish under the Tories, she would not trigger a general election – realistically the only way a ‘hard Brexit’ can be prevented – because she feels she can predict that the result would be another hung Parliament and doesn’t properly ‘understand[ing of the] point’ of giving the public a chance to remove them.
Presumably, although she did not say so explicitly, Ms Phillips would also support Boris Johnson – or at least not vote against him – in a no-confidence vote if Jeremy Corbyn brings one to attempt to force a general election before the otherwise almost certain no-deal Brexit occurs at the end of October.
The question has been put to her directly.
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