Kemi responds to the Kings Speech. Check out a transcript her full speech below:
This king's speech is taking place against the most extraordinary backdrop.
We knew the carriages were booked, the horses were ready, the king was coming, but would we have a prime minister?
So, Mr. Speaker, it is such an honor to be the leader of the opposition who gets to respond today.
May I start by congratulating the proposer and seconder of the loyal address on their excellent speeches. And
can I also congratulate the whips for finding two backbenches prepared to support the prime minister at this time.
The honorable member for Bradford West gave a moving and funny speech. I especially appreciated uh her comments
about black and brown faces on TV. Uh or as my children say, "Oh, look, it's mummy again."
She only touched lightly on the fact that she is someone who has faced one of the most challenging childhoods imaginable
and yet through the strength of her character has made it to this place.
She's made of tough stuff and that is something we need more of in this house.
Anyone who can boast of chewing up and spitting out George Galloway in an election is clearly is clearly formidable.
I also congratulate the member for Harlow on successfully delivering a humorous and warm-hearted speech. As
he noted, he is my constituency neighbor and uh he also yes did run the London Marathon last month raising money for
St. Claire Hospice, which cares for both our constituents. And so I would like to take this opportunity to thank him for doing that. So I've become a big fan of
his after listening to his speech, especially after he was so generous in his comments about the Harlow Conservative successful election
campaign and my councilor's outstanding work regenerating the town center. I would say to him if things on that side of the house are getting a bit
much, he would be very welcome to cross the floor and help Conservatives carry on that work. Mr. Speaker, I think we
can say that the proposer and seconder of the loyal address have upheld the best traditions of the house.
I would of course like to pay tribute to his majesty the king. His majesty has served through a period of great
personal difficulty and throughout he has exemplified the virtues of grace, dignity, humor, modesty, and resolve in the face of adversity.
Virtues which were on full display during his hugely successful state visit to the United States. And I'm sure the whole house will have admired his
skillful speech to Congress. It was a speech full of the wisdom and courage needed for our times. Of course, we
would never have got to hear it if we'd listened to some people in this house who called for the king's visit to be cancelled. But thank goodness no one
listens to the leader of the Liberal Democrats.
As for the prime minister, when he was young, he called for the end of the monarchy. So, I'm glad that the right
honorable and learned gentleman has seen the error of his ways because previous King Charles's took a much dimmer view of that kind of thing.
I'm only sorry that this newfound appreciation of the monarchy and our country's traditions have come too late because this is the first parliamentary
session ever without the hereditary peers and their departure will be keenly felt
will be keenly felt and our parliament will be poorer for it especially
especially Mr. Speaker when you consider some of the people that Labor have been replacing them with. Yeah, people who've
already had the whip removed before they've even taken their seats.
Mr. Speaker, I know the convention is for this to be a light-hearted debate, but as I have already said, this is a highly unusual moment.
The prime minister is in office but not in power. Everyone is trying to pretend
it's all right. It's not all right. In the past 48 hours, nearly 100 Labour MPs
have called for the prime minister to resign. Four ministers have quit. It is clear his authority has gone and that he
will not be able to deliver what little there is in this king speech. This is a government less than two years in office
which has already run out of ideas and run out of road.
So how did we get here? There is a great line in the musical Hamilton, Mr.
Speaker. Winning is easy. Governing is harder.
Everything that has gone wrong in Labour's first two years comes back to one problem. They came into office with
no plan. They did not understand the difference between winning an election and governing a country.
It was very easy to make promises in opposition. promises to freeze council tax, promises to take 300 pounds off
energy bills, promises to the WASPI women. Hundreds of Labour MPs took photos with them to post on their Facebook pages and their websites and
their election leaflets. But at no point did they bother to think how would they deliver any of it.
They didn't spend their time in opposition thinking deeply about the country's problems. They assumed that governing in the 2020s would be like governing in the 1990s, but it isn't.
Britain is facing new structural problems.
We have an aging, Mr. Speaker.
They'll shout at me. I know they can't wait to get back to their plotting, but it's quite important that we hear what is going to be said because we have an
aging population, a falling birth rate, and a welfare bill that is spiraling out of control. We have an information
revolution in the shape of AI that threatens to unravel the world of work as we know it. And the cost of energy is driving industry out of the country.
Yeah. Yeah.
Labour were taken by surprise that we are living in a more competitive and increasingly hostile world. Their
manifesto was just a set of misleading promises. They promised no new taxes on working people. Fail. They promised to crack down on illegal immigration. Fail.
They promised to tread more lightly on people's lives. Epic fail.
They made promises without knowing how anything works. Let's look at housing.
Just after Labour took office, when I was shadow housing secretary, I stood at this dispatch box and warned the former
deputy prime minister that she had been stitched up.
That the 1.5 million new homes Labour promised had been hung like a millstone around her neck. I knew that they
wouldn't be able to meet that target because they didn't understand why more houses weren't being built. Sure enough,
they are already more than a third down on their target and well behind what we delivered.
Of course, Mr. Speaker, in the end, it wasn't one and a half million homes that did for the former deputy prime minister. It took just one flat in Brighton to bring her down.
Mr. Speaker, it is so obvious. It is so obvious. I know they don't want I know they don't want to hear it, Mr. Speaker,
but this I know they don't they they don't they don't want to hear it. Look at them. They are so arrogant. They want to lead our country. They can't even lead a coup. It is so obvious, Mr.
Speaker, that they cannot handle being in government. They cannot handle it.
They hate the responsibility. They hate having to take tough decisions. They prefer scratching the itches that they had in opposition, giving inflation
busting pay rises to the unions. 28% for the doctors who are still striking.
Nearly two years they are still striking, handing out more benefits to the only people who will still vote for
them because Labor don't understand that poverty isn't created by a lack of benefits. It's created by a failing economy.
We spent, Mr. Speaker, we spent the last session listening to Labour MPs telling us how great everything was going. No
doubt we will hear lots of grandstanding speeches this week telling us what a fantastic job they did. How absurd,
given the number of them demanding that the prime minister stands down. We counted, Mr. Speaker, there were 24 U-turns in that first parliamentary
session. winter fuel, family farms, grooming gangs, welfare reforms, social media for under 16s, day one workers
rights, the list goes on and on. And every single one of these U-turns had at its core a single issue. The prime minister's total lack of judgment.
This is a man who faced with a crisis of vision, charisma, and electoral success sent for Gordon Brown.
Leadership, Mr. Speaker, is about having a vision for this country. It's about having the courage to take difficult
decisions, persuading your party that those difficult decisions will pay off in time, and taking responsibility for your mistakes.
He has failed on every count. We've had pillars, promises, four-point plans, five-point plans, missions. None of it
achieving anything. Reset after reset after reset.
Even if the prime minister does last long enough in office to deliver this gracious speech, the bills announced
today do not remotely come close to what the country needs. I know that they're chantling, Mr. Speaker. Not a single one
of them actually dares to intervene on me in this speech. I do, Mr. Speaker, however, wants to welcome I do want to
welcome the government's ongoing support to Ukraine and its commitment to NATO.
In this increasingly dangerous world, it is more important than ever that we stand with our allies in the fight against tyranny.
I also commend the government for its commitment to speed up the delivery of infrastructure such as new nuclear. Too
many governments have been frustrated in their attempts to deliver nuclear projects quickly and we will support efforts to make this process simpler, faster, and cheaper.
I also want to be generous to the home secretary because I can see that she is
trying to do something about illegal immigration. But the elephant in the room is that she almost certainly won't be home secretary for much longer.
Sadly, no one else in the Labour Party looks remotely interested in bringing down illegal immigration.
The rest of this offering in the King's speech, Mr. Speaker, makes it clear that they have learned no lessons from their mistakes in government so far. All we have is a load of re-announced policies.
Hounding our brave veterans through the courts, legislating for digital ID, a policy they told us they dropped, banning trail hunting, just more class war that makes no one's life better.
Scrapping NHS England, something the prime minister announced 14 months ago.
But then I suppose the health secretary has been a bit distracted lately, hasn't he? Yeah, hasn't he? He's chanting now.
Why don't you just do your job? do your job. Even worse, Mr. Speaker, even worse, Mr. Speaker, is what isn't in the
gracious speech. There's no point him giving me dirty looks. We all know what he's been up to. We all know. We all know.
Even worse, Mr. Speaker is what isn't in the gracious speech.
There is no defense readiness bill because apparently it isn't ready. Where are the plans for welfare reform?
There are none because Labour MPs blocked them. Where is the plan to make savings? There isn't one because Labor don't know how to make savings. They
only know how to spend money, other people's money. Where is the plan to support businesses?
There isn't one. Because they don't understand that it is business that creates growth, not government. They have no answers to what really matters,
the problems that must be solved to get Britain working again.
Now, Mr. Mr. Speaker, I will say that I do feel very sorry for Labour backbenches. I do. I do. They arrived
here not that it's true. I do feel sorry for Labour backbenchers I do. They arrived here not that long ago with such
high hopes. Some of them in fact were so talented they were made ministers before ever speaking a word in parliament. So
talented. Although one of them has just resigned. I mustn't forget that one of them has just resigned. We have watched, Mr. Speaker, their growing horror day
after day, week after week, as this hope descended into total chaos. The dread as they are sent out yet again to defend
the indefensible. The injustice at feeling like pariahs in their own constituencies, banned from pubs, banned
from hairdressers, which is presumably she's presumably why all the women on the front bench have the same hairstyle.
the realization, Mr. Speaker, that their legacy is just going to be
now I wasn't they can complain as much as they like. I wasn't expecting to be this to be comfortable for them. They're the ones who are trying to unseat their prime minister. They should face that.
The realization, Mr. Speaker, that their legacy is just going to be breakfast clubs and Peter Mandelson.
Labour MPs have been treated as disposable by their leadership. Sacked for backing the two child benefit cap,
sacked for opposing welfare changes, sacked for supporting farmers. The prime minister then u-turned on all of them.
It must be tough when you take a principled stand and have the whip removed only for the government to confirm 6 months later that they agreed with you all along.
It is no wonder, Mr. speaker that nearly 100 Labour MPs have now called for the prime minister to go.
I know that there's another 100 who claim to be supporting him, although some of them didn't even know that their names were on that list.
When you can only get a quarter of your MPs to publicly back you, the game is up. And so, the starting gun for the Lady Leadership Contest has been fired.
So, let's have a look at the runners and riders.
We have the former deputy prime minister. Speak, Mr. Speaker. Former deputies prime minister who has given up vaping. She's not here. She's given up vaping but still hasn't paid her taxes.
We have the health secretary who accidentally sent his takeover plans to number 10. Almost as incompetent as leaving them on the photocopier.
And we have And we have, Mr. Speaker, the Mayor of Manchester, the Mayor of
Manchester, Mr. Speaker, a self-proclaimed winner, self-proclaimed winner who has twice failed to win the Labour leadership, including against the member for Islington North.
As one Labor MP said about all the candidates in this race, and I quote, "We have to face up to the fact every single one of them is, I apologize, Mr.
Speaker, f star star star star star star useless." I do feel sorry for the poor Labour MPs
who will now be subjected to months of peacocking by leadership candidates while the country is not being governed.
I have some advice for whichever of them eventually takes over. Getting to number 10 is not an award for being in a game show. This is not strictly come dancing.
And despite appearances, it's not traitors either. If you are a housing secretary who can't work out her housing taxes. If you're a health secretary who
can only cut waiting lists by deleting names from the waiting list. If you are Gordon Brown's former chief secretary to the Treasury and you think the bond
markets are a hoax, I can assure you that being prime minister is going to be a lot tougher.
Too many have failed because they thought winning an election or a leadership contest was the success. It is not. The work doesn't end when you get the job. That's when it starts.
It is absolutely preposterous that the government is here laying out a program as its ministers are resigning and a
large proportion of the of the party is saying that the prime minister needs to go. The whole thing is totally
illogical. Either Labour MPs agree with this agenda, in which case why are they trying to get rid of the prime minister, or they don't agree with this agenda, in
which case what on earth are we all doing here? It is time to be brutally honest, Mr.
Speaker. It is time to be brutally honest. The country is angry with the entire political class. All of us here,
they are not happy with how we have been doing politics. It is time to get serious. I will give way. I will give way.
The right honorable lady seeks to lecture us on why it is that everyone is so fed up with the political class, but
uses this opportunity not to lay out what the conservatives would do.
That has spent her time insulting everybody on this side. Surely that's not the way to proceed.
Oh, I'm not done yet. I'm not done yet.
There is plenty more coming. as there is plenty more coming. And the uh
the honorable lady says she's getting a lecture. She is getting a lecture. She is getting a lecture. We're all getting a lecture because we are legislators of
the United Kingdom. We were sent here to fix difficult things. Not focus on our personal hobby horses ranging from the
petty to the purile. I would say to members opposite. I would say to members opposite, you don't need to be scared of
the member for Clacton. I'm not. He is not the cause of Britain's problems. He is a symptom. No, he he is. They are still, Mr. Speaker. They are still delusional.
They are still delusional. Mr. Speaker, I am not going to I'm sorry to puncture the bubble. I am not here to pretend that what is happening is not happening.
They can all pretend and live in La La Land. I'm going to speak the truth to them.
He is not the cause of Britain's problems. He is a symptom of the failure of the political class to focus on what
matters. If you fix if you fix the problems that people care about, he goes away. But you I I will give way. I will give way.
I'm very glad very glad that she's given way. And she's saying that the honorable member for Clacton is a symptom of the problems. But would she agree that what
she and he both had in common is that she very loosely agreed that we should race into war with America in Iran
and then and then just a week later she thought maybe that's not such a good idea and doesn't that prove why she and he are totally unsuitable on this side of the house.
That was a nice try. It's not going to work. So you cannot solve these problems, Mr. Speaker. You cannot solve
the problems of the country unless you have a plan to fix the civil service, the regulators, the legislative straight
jackets, powers transferred from parliament to the courts. Unless you fix structures of government, everyone will
continue to fail. Britain is not ungovernable and it is not broken. The reason we published an alternative king
speech, I'll say to the honorable lady who was asking what the plan was, we have published an alternative king speech is because we need to take tough
decisions to get the country out of the mess we're in. Cutting wasteful spending, funding defense, securing our
borders, reducing the cost of energy. If you want to bring down bills for families and bring industry back to this country, you need a plan to scrap the
net zero legislation strangling industry and making energy costs higher. That's why we're proposing a cheap energy bill
to do just that. If you want businesses to employ people, you need to stop crushing them with thousands of pages of
employment laws and stop handing power to the unions. You need to you need to stop hammering businesses with tax
rises. That's why we're proposing a get Britain working bill that would scrap laws that are no longer fit for purpose and are killing jobs.
If you want to get a grip on illegal immigration and remove foreign criminals from the country, you must have a plan
to leave the ECHR and repeal the Human Rights Act. You must. Efforts to get control of our borders have been
frustrated because power has been taken out of the hands of ministers. We need to bring that power back so that we
don't have murderers staying in our country because the courts stop us from deporting them.
Our alternative king speech shows how it can be done. Letting the governments, not the courts, decide who comes and goes. Amen.
Prime Ministers are going to keep running into problems until they deal with activist lawyers and international
agreements that tie the government's hands against the interests of the British public. Oh, Mr. Speaker, they're chanting they're chanting that it
Mr. Speaker, they're chanting they're chanting that it's Does someone want to stand up and tell us who they're supporting? Is it the plotters or the PM? Is it because I know that's what
they really want to get to. They're not interested in hearing what a plan for the country should be because they're too focused on Labor Party problems. Mr.
Speaker, we will keep running into these problems until they deal with activist lawyers and international agreements that tie the government's hands against the interests of the British public.
Next, we must reduce welfare spending.
It is eating every penny that we generate in income tax and more. We must spend much more on defense. Even former
Labor defense secretaries are pleading with the government to do this. That's why we're proposing a sovereign defense fund which will overhaul Britain's
defense industrial base. That's what the alternative could be.
That alternative king speech makes difficult choices because that is what leadership is.
We have laid out these plans now because we are more than happy for Labour to take them.
They might be our political opponents, Mr. Speaker, but we are all citizens of this country. We recognize the enormous
challenges facing Britain. We want to see these problems solved and so do our constituents.
Time and again, I have offered the prime minister support to pass difficult legislation.
Time and again I have offered the prime minister support to pass difficult legislation. Time and again he has turned it down. It might be too late for
him now but it's not too late for his successor. It is time to get serious. It is time to deliver. That is what the
British public expect. That is what the Conservative Party will do.
