Mirror Online – 31 January 2017
A Tory MP has just given one of the shortest speeches in the history of Parliament. Julian Lewis declared:
“The people have decided and I am going to vote accordingly.”
MPs laughed and joked about his “brevity”. He was, of course, making a point that Brexit shouldn’t be held up. We haven’t even got a picture of him because Parliament’s cameras couldn’t focus on his face in time.
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Politics Home – 31 January 2017
Tory MP Julian Lewis has arguably the speech of the day. Here it is in full:
“Thank you, Mr Speaker. In my opinion, the people have decided and I’m going to vote accordingly.”
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‘TORY MP EARNS APPRECIATION FOR BEING BRIEF ON BREXIT’
ITV News Online – 31 January 2017
Three hours into the Brexit Bill debate, Conservative MP Julian Lewis has delivered possibly the shortest speech the Commons will see over the course of two days of discussion on the issue.
"In my opinion, the people have decided and I'm going to vote accordingly,"
the MP for New Forest East said, and sat back down. Labour's Gisela Stuart, called on to speak after Mr Lewis, congratulated him for keeping his remarks so brief.
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‘MPs TRADE BITTER BLOWS OVER BREXIT TRIGGER BILL’
Sky News Online – 31 January 2017
Even though Mr Bercow imposed a six-minute limit on backbench speeches for most of the debate, Conservative MP Julian Lewis won the award for brevity, with a speech of just eight seconds.
"In my opinion, the people have decided and I'm going to vote accordingly," he told MPs, before sitting down.
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PARLIAMENTARY SKETCH
Daily Mail – 1 February 2017
By Quentin Letts
… Theresa May and Boris Johnson had been side by side as a croaky David Davis, Brexit Secretary, introduced the Bill (Mrs May left after half an hour, as PMs do). Mr Davis was hard to hear owing to a cold that has been afflicting him this week. He became bogged down in stuff about Britain’s future membership of Euratom, a European atomic science agency.
"Will they split over the atom?"
wondered a press gallery friend. But eventually Mr Davis found a bigger picture and said the Bill boiled down to a single question:
"Do we trust the people or not?"
And that, for all the puffing from a lively Sammy Wilson (a pro-Brexit Ulsterman), a crossly pessimistic Dame Margaret Beckett (it was all "potentially catastrophic") and a
"we’ll cause trouble yet, just you see"
tone from Hilary Benn, was the nub of it.
As Julian Lewis (Con, New Forest E) put it:
"In my opinion the people have decided. I’m going to vote accordingly."
And that was his speech in its entirety. Twelve words was all it took.