Vincentian Expression

July 2025

In recent weeks, watching Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs), I couldn’t help but notice something troubling: an MP using their single allotted question to speak, not for the people they represent here in Britain, but for those in Gaza.

Now, before the accusations begin, let me say this plainly. What is happening in Gaza matters. Lives matter, no matter the geography. War, occupation, and injustice deserve our attention, and Britain’s foreign policy should be held to account. But I ask: when MPs stand in the House of Commons, whose voices are they meant to carry their constituents here at home, or those living thousands of miles away?

Because while this MP took their moment to speak on Gaza, I can think of hundreds of thousands of people right here in Britain, including those in their very constituency who are waiting for answers too. Answers on crumbling NHS services, rising rents, unaffordable childcare, school places, veterans abandoned by the system, and a Home Office making life a misery for Commonwealth soldiers and their families.

Those questions weren’t asked. That opportunity was spent elsewhere.

Who Comes First?

MPs are elected to speak for us. That’s the contract. We don’t send them to Parliament for their personal conscience alone. We send them to voice the everyday struggles of the people who live, work, and pay taxes in their constituencies. The people sitting on council housing waiting lists. The small businesses drowning in red tape. The parents skipping meals to feed their kids.

And yes, international matters matter. But should one question sometimes the only chance in months really be spent advocating for people outside these shores, while constituents grow ever more disillusioned, unheard, and abandoned?

I wonder how many in that MP’s local surgery the ones battling rent hikes, fighting immigration bureaucracy, or scraping by on zero-hour contracts heard that Gaza question and thought: “What about us?”

What’s the Role of PMQs?

Prime Minister’s Questions was never meant to be a weekly show trial on international affairs alone. It is a platform to scrutinize government on everything under its remit, NHS, welfare, veterans, defence, housing, and yes, foreign policy too. But if week after week we watch MPs using that platform to chase headlines on Gaza or Yemen or Afghanistan while ignoring the rot under our own feet, something is wrong.

There are select committees, special debates, and Foreign Office briefings for sustained, detailed scrutiny of international policy. PMQs should reflect what is burning hottest at home. And right now, Britain is on fire in too many places to count.

Representation or Grandstanding?

The risk here isn’t only neglect. It’s the growing perception that some MPs no longer speak for the people who elect them but instead for global causes that align with activist agendas or personal brand-building. It’s easy to get applause online for championing Gaza. It’s less glamorous to ask awkward, local questions about why the GP surgery hasn’t reopened, or why British-born children of soldiers can’t bring their siblings over while Afghan migrants fly in 22 relatives overnight.

Yet that is the work constituents expect. That is what democracy demands.

A Final Word on Fearmongering

On a separate but related note: we must resist the creeping fearmongering narrative that Britain will somehow “become a Muslim country” because of immigration. Britain will remain Britain, a patchwork of cultures, faiths, and traditions, governed by the rule of law, not religious law. Muslims will remain a small, respected minority here for generations to come. Our democracy is stronger than demographic paranoia. What it needs is MPs who remember why they were sent to Westminster in the first place.

In the End: Ask Yourself This.

Next time your MP stands up in Parliament and asks their question, ask yourself:

Did they speak for you — or for someone else entirely?

And when the election comes, answer accordingly