Michael Gove: Tory local election disaster a direct result of Brexit failure
The Environment Secretary said councillors were punished for party's inability to deliver on EU referendum result
Michael Gove told the Scottish Conservative conference Brexit was the reason for the electoral losses (Photo: Getty)
Chris Green 2 months Saturday May 4th 2019
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Results are proof that 'referendum results must be honoured', Gove says
He urges party to unite around Theresa May's Brexit deal to avoid election defeat
The Conservative Party's disastrous showing in this week's English local elections were a direct result of its failure to deliver Brexit, Michael Gove has said.
The Environment Secretary said the main lesson the Tories should take from their drubbing at the ballot box was that "referendum verdicts must be honoured".
"If local elections down south tell us anything, they remind us that referendum verdicts must be honoured"
In a speech to the Scottish Conservative conference in Aberdeen, he said many of the 1,334 councillors who lost their seats did so "because Parliament has not yet delivered Brexit".
Mr Gove, who campaigned prominently for the Leave side ahead of 2016's vote, also warned delegates that Jeremy Corbyn could get into power if the Tories failed to deliver on Brexit.
Amid speculation that he is preparing a leadership bid, he also spent a large portion of his speech telling party members about his upbringing and how being adopted shaped his politics.
Describing his parents as "the reason why I am in politics", he said he wanted to "repay their kindness and love" by improving other people's lives while in government.
The Tories suffered their worst result at English local elections since 1995 (Photo: Getty)
Addressing the local election results in England, which saw the Tories endure its worst result since 1995, Mr Gove stressed the importance of getting Theresa May's Brexit deal through the Commons.
"If local elections down south tell us anything, they remind us that referendum verdicts must be honoured," he told the conference.
"Lots of hardworking Conservative councillors lost their seats because Parliament has not yet delivered Brexit."
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He continued: "I hope that when Parliament returns, that MPs from every party will unite to respect the referendum result and back the deal. That is what democracy demands."
Mr Gove also hit out at Nicola Sturgeon's plan to hold another referendum on Scottish independence, accusing her of being "contemptuous of Scotland's interests".
"The idea that what Scotland wants now is another expensive, divisive, investment-freezing, prosperity-draining, uncertainty-generating, family-separating, acrimony-escalating referendum is politically reckless, democratically insulting and just plain wrong," he added.
He also claimed that the SNP's plans to ditch the pound and launch a new Scottish currency would drive up prices in shops and make the whole country poorer.
"You'd have a bureau de change at Berwick and you couldn't use sterling in Stirling. It's a crazy idea, and Nicola Sturgeon knows it. She didn't want it to become SNP policy but her party insisted.
"And now she has to argue for something she doesn't believe in."
A spokeswoman for Finance Secretary Derek Mackay said: "Michael Gove would claim any currency option was the wrong one – and his comments simply underline the sense of panic gripping the Tories as support for independence goes from strength to strength.
"The whole point of becoming independent is so Scotland has the full powers to take decisions that are in the best interests of our economy and our people."
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