Jacob Rees-Mogg

Magpies have long been thought to be birds of omen. I am not superstitious. Yet during the election campaign I could not help but notice single magpies all the time. Perhaps you only notice what you are looking for, as from the beginning of the campaign the polls were clear that I would lose North East Somerset and Hanham. I wrote to my boarding school children when the election was called to warn them of the impending defeat, but unfortunately they cannot read my handwriting. Throughout the campaign, the mood on the doorstep was excellent and the team full of beans. Many visitors came to help and I regularly had people staying overnight. This always makes elections fun, but there is less time for reading than you might expect.

Parliamentary sovereignty is the bedrock of the constitution, and the courts ought to accept it, even when bad laws are passed. It is not the job of the courts to make the law, but to adjudicate on it. Thus the Appeal Court ruling against Shamima Begum is right, even if the decision of Sajid Javid, as Home Secretary, to strip Begum of her citizenship is wrong and ought never to have been made. This is not because Begum was groomed, trafficked and raped. These are serious considerations, and in all normal circumstances, a 15-year-old treated in such a barbarous way would not be held culpable for her actions.

After the shale gas vote, I was literally sent to Coventry – to visit the UK Battery Industrialisation Centre. It is a remarkable facility that helps take batteries from development through to production. It means companies only need the hundreds of millions of pounds in investment once they have shown that their product works and is saleable. It was funded by the Faraday Battery Challenge, and I was there to announce a further £221 million of taxpayers’ money. This is one of the rather better ways the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy spends money, while some of our policies seem designed to ruin industry. I am particularly concerned about steel, where the price of energy is, in normal times, about 60 per cent more than our competitors.

My contention in this speech is that it is our constitution that makes us prosperous and that returning powers to Westminster from Europe will boost our economic growth. But explaining why our nation has been so successful over the centuries relies first on recognising the existence, and then identifying the nature, of an unseen dark matter which lies at the heart of British governance. I fear this missing link, this secret ingredient, has not received sufficient acknowledgement - despite its presence being detected by many members of the Study of Parliament Group over the years.

It is rare that losing a day at Lord’s for a Test match is welcome. I had expected to be watching England play Ireland with my wife and two of my children on the Thursday before last. Instead, much to my delight, Boris Johnson asked me to become Leader of the House of Commons and Lord President of the Council, so I had my first cabinet meeting, my first outing at the Despatch Box and first Privy Council meeting. Anselm, my fourth child, went to the cricket in my place so was equally pleased. The joy in joining the government is, naturally, in part personal but mainly because we will now leave the European Union on 31 October. Something that would not have happened with any other possible prime minister.

‘Away with the cant of “measures not men”! — the idle supposition that it is the harness and not the horses that draw the chariot along. No, Sir, if the comparison must be made, if the distinction must be taken, men are everything, measures comparatively nothing.’ George Canning said this in 1801 and recent events remind us that he was right. In the end the only way to change the policy is to change the person, as the individual determines the direction and is rarely willing to try a different route. As I have known this quotation for decades, it was naïve of me to expect the Prime Minister to change her policy. It is not how it works: the wrong policy means the wrong person.

‘Away with the cant of “measures not men”! — the idle supposition that it is the harness and not the horses that draw the chariot along. No, Sir, if the comparison must be made, if the distinction must be taken, men are everything, measures comparatively nothing.’ George Canning said this in 1801 and recent events remind us that he was right. In the end the only way to change the policy is to change the person, as the individual determines the direction and is rarely willing to try a different route. As I have known this quotation for decades, it was naïve of me to expect the Prime Minister to change her policy. It is not how it works: the wrong policy means the wrong person.

Dear Sir Graham, A few weeks ago, in a conversation with the Chief Whip I expressed my concern that the Prime Minister, Mrs. Theresa May, was losing the confidence of Conservative members of Parliament and that it would be in the interest of the party and the country if she were to stand aside. I have wanted to avoid the disagreeable nature of a formal vote of no confidence with all the ill will that this risks engendering. Regrettably, the draft withdrawal agreement presented to Parliament today has turned out to be worse than anticipated and fails to meet the promises given to the nation by the Prime Minister, either on her own account or on behalf of us all in the Conservative party manifesto.

This (Brexit White Paper) is the greatest vassalage since King John paid homage to Philip II at Le Goulet in 1200. This White Paper has not needed age to turn yellow. There are very few signs of the Prime Minister's famous red lines. It is a pale imitation of the paper prepared by David Davis, a bad deal for Britain. It is not something I would vote for, nor is it what the British people voted for. In particular, this paper sets out that the UK will be subject to EU laws while having no say in their creation. The Common Rule Book will not be Common, it will be EU law, interpreted by the EU Court with the UK subjected to EU fines for non-compliance. The UK has accepted it cannot diverge from 'ongoing harmonisation' without activating repercussions for Northern Ireland.