Westminster Views | rogergale

Westminster View

May 2025

April was turbulent, but May delivered us little in the way of calm waters either. If Westminster had a barometer, the mercury would surely have exploded by now. The floor of the chamber is littered with the detritus of broken promises .

Do you remember the undertaking that “We will smash the gangs”? I am not one of those who believes that all immigration is bad but the influx of illegal migrants via small boats using the short-straits channel crossing has risen to an all time high under this Government which rendered the Home Office statement to Parliament on 12th May, entitled “Restoring Control over the Immigration System” little short of risible.

“The rules must be respected and enforced” the House was told. “Later this Year we will set out further reforms on asylum and border security and on tackling illegal and irregular migration….because no one should be making these crossings on small boats”. Highly decisive!

To be fair, the main thrust of the statement , while we are waiting for Godot, was about legal and net migration. “Overseas recruitment has shot up while training in the UK was cut” but “We need our country to benefit from the best top talent from around the world”. I agree with the latter sentiment but we also know that without recruitment at every level, from consultants through nurses to ancillary staff, the NHS and the Care Sector , for example, would collapse.

“International students bring huge benefits to the UK – supporting our world-leading universities, bringing in top talent and investment” the Lady said. said. The Home Secretary might have added that downstream the benefit of soft power is considerable. As international students are drained away from the UK to Amsterdam and Paris within the EU and to Australia and the USA from further afield because of uncompetitive costs and visa restrictions we shall feel the loss of diplomatic and business influence. Not tomorrow. Not in my lifetime perhaps, but twenty years from now. And in the meantime our universities are shedding staff because of the loss of overseas revenue. Everything comes at a price and if we pander to the saloon bar populism of Farage we shall be paying that price for many years to come.

Moving seamlessly on, the Prime Minister made a statement od 20th May following his negotiations with the EU and “Brexit re-set deal” otherwise known as the “Surrender Summit”.

It is a matter of record that, in our economic and security interests, I myself voted to remain within the European Union and I know that since our departure many others have regretted leaving. We are, however, where we are. We shall not be re-joining and we have to strive to make the situation work for UK Ltd. The Withdrawal Agreement negotiated by David, now Lord, Frost and signed off by Johnson is deeply flawed. Johnson, you will recall, swore that there would never be a border down the middle of the Irish Sea, for example, and then signed a piece of paper agreeing to exactly that. (The much-maligned Rishi Sunak had to try to extricate us from that mess).

I am not wedded to “no change”. If there are improvements – amending the 90-day within 180 days stay-limit within the EU, for instance - that can be achieved then good luck. Coming on the back of a disastrous and unnecessary Chagos Islands deal that will cost the British taxpayer a fortune, however, there are now real concerns over the re-introduction of `freedom of movement` by the back door, further payments to the EU , `dynamic alignment` with EU regulations, the primacy of NATO as the cornerstone of EU security and, of course, fishing rights. Kemi Badenoch was right to call this deal a `capitulation`.

At the end of May the Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, made his sixth statement on Israel/Gaza to the House. He said:

“Netanyahu`s government is planning to drive Gazans from their homes into a corner of the Strip to the South and permit them a fraction of the aid that they need. Yesterday Minister Smotrich even spoke of Israeli forces “cleansing” Gaza. “Destroying what’s left” and of Palestinians “being re-located to third countries”.

We must call it what it is. It is extremism. It is dangerous it is repellent. And I condemn it in the strongest possible terms………

Yesterday the Prime Minister joined the Leaders of France and Canada in strongly opposing the expansion of Israel`s military operations……………as he (The Prime Minister) said ` if Isreal pursues this military offensive as it has threatened and fails to ensure the unhindered provision of aid we will take further actions in response`”.

I have some respect for Mr. Lammy. I believe that he probably went as far as his brief from the Cabinet allowed him to go. Which is mostly all words today and the threat of action tomorrow.

Not all, but a majority of the House believe that the conflict will only be resolved by the adoption of the `Two-State solution` and if that is so and if Palestine is to be recognised then the sooner it is done then the better. Which is why, led by the Father of the House and in the company of another Privy Counsellor and a very senior backbencher I tried to deliver a letter to that effect to the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom at Number 10 Downing Street. Astonishingly receipt of that letter was rejected.

I have travelled quite widely and I have seen famine and drought and consequent death but I have never, ever, experienced the weaponisation of the supplies of food and water against a civilian population on the scale or in the manner in which it is being perpetrated in Gaza by the Government of Israel.

I am wholly certain that the absolute priority today must be the delivery of adequate supplies of food, water and medicines to those currently and literally dying of starvation and thirst. Only once that is done may we allow ourselves the luxury of turning to longer-term considerations and recriminations. Those who deny this will be shamefully on the wrong side of history and humanity.

From the repugnant to the ridiculous.

Having ridden a wave of protest votes into town and county halls across England, `Reform UK` are discovering the inconvenient truth that slogans, no matter how loudly delivered through a megaphone outside a pub, do not translate into competent governance. Finding themselves responsible for potholes, bin collections and bus routes, the Reform cohort has quickly realised that the mechanics of local government are less about “taking our country back” and more about working out how to fund a rural transport subsidy.

At a recent Kent County Council meeting, a newly elected Reform councillor reportedly asked whether money earmarked for “woke cycling lanes” could be redirected to fund a county-wide St. George’s Day parade — which tells you all you need to know. Meanwhile in Essex, another freshly-minted Reform leader attempted to explain why cutting council tax while simultaneously improving services is, in fact, “simple maths.” The Director of Finance was later reported to have been seen ordering a large gin.

Farage himself remains as performatively indignant as ever, hosting his GB News pulpit one day, addressing his “foot soldiers” the next. But as the mud of actual responsibility clings to his party’s boots, the cracks are beginning to show. One suspects the electorate may be less than forgiving once they realise the only thing some Reform councillors have managed to reform is their own parking arrangements while others, not having expected to be elected, are finding that Council duties are onerous, impact upon their working and domestic lives and are threatening to cause by-elections. To whom will the `protest voters` next turn when that happens?

The economy continues to wheeze and sputter like an overworked donkey on a Blackpool beach. The Chancellor, still insisting that Britain is “turning a corner,” has now been caught in a cul-de-sac of her own spreadsheets. The Bank of England’s May inflation figures poured cold water on Labour’s insistence that “growth is back.” And the Chancellor may want to revise her slogans before the autumn’s anticipated tax hikes.

In the meantime, it looks as though Starmer, under parliamentary pressure from the Conservative Party and external pressure from the opinion polls, is preparing for a handbrake-turn on Winter Fuel Allowances. Having starved some of the poorest people in the Country of this modest benefit through what was, mercifully, a relatively mild winter it has dawned on many Labour backbenchers that if they are to have any chance of saving their political skins then this policy has to be `reviewed`. I have said before that while it makes no sense to dish out WFA to higher-rate taxpayers the manner in which this cut was so brutally introduced by `Rachel from accounts` was so crass that were it not for the impossible optics she would have been shown smartly to the door of Number Eleven Downing Street. We now wait to see whether the changes will be made in time to benefit pensioners next winter

And then there’s an Environment Secretary, who has launched the Government’s new “Land Use Harmony” policy by declaring war on “outdated farming models.” One might have hoped for support for innovation and sustainability. Instead, we were treated to a lecture on vertical farming from a man who, it turns out, has never grown so much as a sweet pea.

While there is certainly a case for `vertical farming` - Grow Up in my own constituency near Sandwich is a good example – and while Thanet Earth, as the largest and highly successful glasshouse development in the country, Thanet Earth, is supplying the nation with tomatoes and other vegetables instead of importing them - the fact remains that we are losing far too much good farmland to housing development and inefficient `solar farms`.

Our Farmers are up in arms , and with rural marches planned across several counties in June any government honeymoon with the countryside is well and truly over.

In other news it looked, fleetingly, as though a third World War might be triggered not in the Middle East nor by the Neo-Soviet Union but between the two nuclear powers of India and Pakistan. Mercifully, mediation and common sense seem to have prevailed – at least for the time being..

The Government has announced that there will henceforth be a ten-year rather than a five-year qualifying period for British nationality. Retrospective legislation invariably ends in tears and this decree has left thousands of people, lawfully settled, and working in the United Kingdom, wondering where they stand.

The Tramp has progressed his economic war by opening up another front and declaring that there will be a 100% tariff on all films not made in the United States. He has also declared , on the eve of the commemoration of the Anniversary of VE day, that it was the United States that won the Second World War. Presumably there will be a further tariff on any cinematographic productions that dare to suggest that others might have played some minor role in that victory as well?

The conclave of Cardinals took only a couple of days to declare the election of Pope Leo X1V as the successor to Pope Francis.

In the Eurovision song contest the United Kingdom was staunchly represented by Lauren Byrne, Hayley-Ann Hull and Charlotte Steele rendering `Remember Monday`. Predictably the public, less generous than the judges, awarded the trio nil points. The contest was won by the Austrian JJ.

Will the English ladies now join Sir Elton John, Sir Paul McCartney, Dua Lipa and others of the glitterati in voicing a just concern about the unremunerated exploitation of their works by megalithic organisations developing AI.?

King Charles the Third has formally re-opened the Canadian Parliament in his capacity as Head of State of a country that has no desire to become an adjunct of the United States. A point that may well be lost upon the obtuse and boorish President of that nation!

Sir David Attenborough has celebrated his ninety-ninth birthday.

Finally, a nod to the sublime: the reading, at the Hay Literary Festival, of an extract from Marcus Aurelius reminded us, gently, of the importance of contemplation in turbulent times. It was an apt reminder, as the Government races from one manufactured crisis to the next, that dignity – unlike inflation – remains a matter of choice.