Sam Gyimah Quotes

The issue for me is not just Brexit. It is beyond Brexit – how you conduct politics and the veering towards populism and English nationalism.

As a black member of parliament and minister for nearly a decade, I was determined not to be defined by my race. I didn’t want to be ‘the black politician’, when being black is just a part of who I am.

The sheer drop in sterling since 2016 is only a taste of what’s to come if we continue down the destructive route of a no-deal Brexit.

The astonishing thing for me is that I had a career before politics and I never thought about my colour.

Parliament is relentless, it never stops.

Ever since Theresa May‘s premiership, I have become suspicious of the ‘lectern moment‘. That is when the prime minister steps outside Downing Street to address the nation on Brexit.

I voted to remain because I thought it was costly and complicated to leave the EU, and that is clearly still the case. But there are opportunities and challenges.

One point leavers and remainers agree on is that if there had never been a referendum, and this deal had been proposed as the basis for our country‘s future, it would have rightly been rejected by parliament and the public.

That’s my upbringing. Try, if it doesn’t work out, try again. It was the same thing with Parliament.

At the Oxford Union I’d never debated before but I gave it a go.

As a child, my mother would read to me late into the night. I didn’t enjoy it at the time but she always used to say that the inheritance she was going to leave us was a good education.

Everyone who’s rational should have an interest in science. The future of our planet depends on our understanding of science… It’s something I value immensely.

I am instinctively wary of identity politics. Ultimately, no two black men are the same, any more than two white men are the same.

Every election cycle there has been some manoeuvre against me, so at some level I am used to it.

Born in the UK, brought up in Ghana, it was a sort of childhood of hardship and difficulty.

Leaving people worse off financially is a Brexit outcome nobody supports, whether they voted leave or remain.

Nothing of substance is being achieved or even proposed, while the country remains trapped in the Kafka-esque misery that Brexit has become.

Westminster is gripped by a fanatical race towards a cliff-edge Brexit and nobody is stopping to think about the impact it would have on the everyday lives of the people we serve as politicians.

The big thing in Ghana is a strong sense that if you failed in your education that was it. There was no system… to give you support later on, there really wasn’t much of a second chance so there was a big emphasis in… this is your life chance and you have got to take it.

Brexit is an immensely complex national challenge encompassing issues from sovereignty and trade to security in an increasingly interdependent world.

The Tory Party only talks to Brexiteers. It almost demonises… It comes across as dismissive of those who are not.

The UKRI visa program, it’s going to make it easier for researchers to come to the U.K. and do their work.

I want to ensure we have more nurseries in schools, and that they open in time for parents to get to work.

Much of what we buy relies on products from the EU – purchases that British importers make in euros.

I am an outcast in the Conservative party. But that’s Brexit. It has divided families. The country is divided. This is a huge fault line.