A Few Minutes with… Ivan Lewis, MP

Ivan Lewis, a Jewish MP and former government minister under former prime minister Tony Blair, witnessed the end of political stability, himself going from campaigning to remain in the European Union to voting for Johnson’s Brexit deal, and from being a long-standing Labour MP to resigning from the party due to its anti-Semitism crisis.

A few weeks ago, he made parliamentary history by being likely the first MP to wear a kippah in the House of Commons as he made a speech protesting Labour’s bigotry. He explains why he voted for Boris’s Brexit deal, and how a still-possible Corbyn government would threaten Jewish life in the UK.

In the 2016 Brexit referendum, you supported remaining in the European Union, but you voted for Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal in Parliament last week. Why did you support this deal? Is a better one that doesn’t create customs checks between Northern Ireland and the rest of Britain not possible?

Having campaigned to remain in the EU, I was bitterly disappointed by the result that I thought was not the right one for the UK. But I said then that the democratic decision of the British people — including most of my constituents who voted Leave — had to be respected, and that’s the platform I stood on in the 2017 general election. That was also the manifesto of the Labour Party at the time, which they have not honored, calling instead for a second referendum.

I tried to work cross-party in Parliament to help pass a Brexit that would give the UK as much access to the EU single market as possible while leaving the EU institutions, but that was defeated by ultra-Remainers in the Labour and Liberal Democrat parties. They talk about protecting the country from the risks of a No Deal Brexit, but they’re really hell-bent on thwarting Brexit at all costs.