Conservative MP Christopher Chope who recently scuppered legislation against ‘upskirting’ – filming up women’s skirts – has now blocked a bill to safeguard children from female genital mutilation (FGM).
This bill was also a private members bill, and yet again Chope used parliamentary practice to object to a second reading of the bill in the House of Commons today.
The 71 year-old MP for Christchurch was rounded on for his latest “inhumane” intervention.
Anti-FGM campaigner Nimco Ali said the Tory MP was an “embarrassment to your party and humanity.”
Ali and other campaigners spent the week begging the obstructive MP not to block the bill. Chope refused to even speak to them on the phone, complaining they were subjecting him to “verbal abuse”.
As well as obstructing the upskirting bill, Chope voted against equal marriage, minimum wage, equal pay transparency, revenge evictions, wild animals in circuses and pardoning Alan Turing the war hero whose code cracking programme is creditted with helping the allies win the Second World War saving countless lives.
Many were aghast last year when Theresa May awarded Chope with a knighthood despite teh vocal Brexiteer being a member of the awkward squad frustrating the PM’s attempts at achieving her withdrawal agreement from the EU, and suspected it was an attempt to get more of her colleagues to vote with her government.
The PM appeared lost for words when the BBC’s Andrew Marr quizzed her about the decision.
Christopher Chope MP claims that he objects to private members bills on procedural grounds. Which is disingenuous to say the least, as he has supported many of his Conservative colleagues’.
The Dorset MP was dubbed “appalling” by fellow Tory MP Zac Goldsmith, who had been steering the Children Act (Amendment) (FGM) Bill through the Commons, as the Conservative Party now faces calls to strip Chope of the party whip.
Labour’s Shadow Minister for Women and Equalities Dawn Butler said: “It’s unacceptable that this dinosaur of a Tory MP consistently gets away with blocking new laws which would protect the safety and rights of women.”
Many are outraged by his latest obstruction of common sense legislation to defend women.