PMQs Review: Questions for Mr Nobody

BREXIT bonus alert! Such is the omerta which governs all parties across the House of Commons chamber these days, it is rare to catch a mention of Brexit, let alone a Brexit bonus. And until January 10, 2024, Hansard recorded not a single “brilliant Brexit bonus”. That all changed today, when Anna Firth rose to question Rishi Sunak.

“New, very large shellfish beds have been discovered in the Thames Estuary, including razor clams and Manila clams, both highly prized around the world!” cheered Firth, the Conservative MP for Southend West. “So will my honourable friend join me in congratulating local fisherman Mr Paul Gilson on his proactive work and will he come to Leigh-on-Sea, meet my local fishermen, so we can discuss how to maximise this brilliant Brexit bonus for Essex fishermen?” She punched the air three times as she said the key words.

“Brilliant Brexit bonus”! The discovery of some new clams! It is not at all clear what role the UK’s departure from its prime trading bloc played in this. Had the razor clams been there all along, lurking in the darkness since the 1970s, thinking “sod this, we’re not making ourselves known until Champagne can be sold in pint-sized bottles?” It’s not clear, and Sunak was not one to question. “We have been capitalising on the benefits since we left the EU and we’re making sure that we can transform opportunity in the UK, particularly in fishing communities,” he said, which is sort of true in that plenty of fishermen now have the opportunity to retrain, the industry having been largely decimated by Brexit.

It was one of few moments of note in a PMQs which was largely a footnote to Sunak’s announcement that primary legislation would be introduced to exonerate the victims of the Post Office scandal, a move that did not go far enough for SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn. The public were angry at Westminster “because they know that this place never really changes, does it, prime minister?”, he asked.

“I am sad that the honourable gentleman is trying to politicise something that has happened over multiple decades with multiple people at fault,” said Sunak. (He was most emphatically not sad at attempts to politicise it 10 minutes earlier when Tory deputy chairman, GB News host and sometime MP Lee Anderson opened proceedings by demanding that Lib Dem leader Ed Davey “clear his desk, clear his diary and clear off”).

Keir Starmer, however, chose to focus on Sunak’s Rwanda policy and the news that emerged this weekend that the prime minister used to think it was a load of old rubbish. “One ambitious Tory MP had reservations,” said Starmer, to oohs and aahs from his backbenchers. “He agreed with Labour that it wouldn’t work, that it was a waste of money, it was the latest in a long line of gimmicks. Does the prime minister know what happened to that MP?”

Sunak did the tetchy Sunak thing. “What the honourable gentleman refers to is a document that he hasn’t seen, I haven’t seen and has been reported second-hand in a bunch of newspapers,” he fumed. This was his exact-same response to Laura Kuenssberg at the weekend: that he couldn’t speak about things he’d thought and said, because he hadn’t seen the reports showing he’d thought and said them – except that was three days ago, and the prime minister hasn’t had the intellectual curiosity to read them in the interim.

The session then petered out into Starmer essentially asking the same question again and again, stating that Sunak is useless and at one point trialling a new nickname, “Mr Nobody”. The prime minister then repeated the absurd suggestion that Starmer “every single time… picks the people smugglers over the British people”. Even Oliver Dowden only managed the mutest of cheers to that one.

Finally, Tory backbencher and Anderson’s fellow GB News host (the Tory green benches increasingly resemble a green room) Philip Davies rose to ask if Sunak could secure a new swimming pool for Bingley. “Come and use mine, it’s only 60 miles away,” the prime minister could have said, but didn’t. He’ll have to go to Leigh-on-Sea instead, and check out those patriotic clams.