Member

Sadly, I missed the opportunity to speak on the UK-EU deal earlier in this House. I arrived only after it started because I had just returned from, ironically, speaking on free speech in Brussels. A combination of having been in Brussels and walking in on that debate slightly triggered me, because it reminded me of the climate of conformity and how it can operate in the workplace. I wrote an article for the Spectator some time after the referendum in which I talked about silent Brexiteers—the numbers of people who were teachers, academics or health workers who could not say that they voted to leave the European Union in a legal referendum because they knew they would be driven out in many ways. When that article was published, they said that, as the phrase goes, it broke the internet, because so many people were saying, “I know”. People were stopping me on the street and saying, “You wrote that article. I’m one of those people, but don’t tell my boss”. That is what it was like.