It is an amazing state of affairs that the Government has voted for a General Election and the opposition has not.

The last few weeks of constitutional arguments and legislative shenanigans may have left many people baffled and confused, but what it comes down to is that a small majority in the Commons has voted for legislation which ties the hands of the executive and reduces its ability to negotiate a new deal with the EU.

I have consistently supported leaving with a deal and my voting record reflects this, but I do not support the ill thought through extension that was rushed through Parliament; supposedly to rule out no deal but which does nothing to make a deal more likely but simply removes any incentive from the EU to negotiate.

I promised my constituents when I ran for election in 2015 that I would support a referendum and respect its result. I promised in 2017 to deliver on the result of that referendum and I am quite content to put it to the people in a General Election in order to be able to do so.

If the Commons had voted for this in sufficient numbers on Monday then we would now be heading into a General Election, which could be decided and finished before the European Council in October and after which the Prime Minister could seek a new deal for our exit or, in the case of Jeremy Corbyn, seek to cancel it. I believe the British public, who voted to leave the EU in the largest democratic exercise in our nation’s history, would elect a Government to do the former, not the latter but I am enough of a democrat to respect whatever decision they would reach. Instead the opposition have denied the public the chance to have that say and have run scared of any election, preferring to leave the country at an impasse and hoping to make political hay from the consequences.

I think the sensible people I meet on the doorsteps of Worcester will be appalled by such opportunism and I suspect they will keep on saying to me what I have heard time and again over the last few years, “get Brexit done, get it done with a deal and get on with it”. Those are instructions on which I continue to act. I look forward to supporting a Queen’s Speech, which will help to deliver them.

Meanwhile, I’ve been able to take forward a number of other important matters as Worcester’s MP, meeting with the Health Secretary to push for more capital investment in our hospital, pressing the Chancellor, successfully, for a step change in the delivery of funding for our schools and more local investment in regeneration, meeting up with Worcester veterans at the fourth birthday of their breakfast club, raising the concerns of constituents from the Kashmiri community with the Foreign Office about the human rights of their friends and families in the Indian-occupied part of Kashmir.

I was delighted to open Worcester’s first brand new Primary school in a generation at the North Worcester Primary Academy in Claines on Friday, and to visit the nearly completed work at the wonderful St Richard’s Hospice who are close to finishing their amazing Big Build programme.

I’m looking forward in the coming weeks to plenty more activity in Worcester, in Westminster and in my Ministerial roles, which will keep me busy even whilst the House is in recess. I am passionate about doing the job of Worcester’s MP, but I have now voted twice to potentially give it all up in order to deliver on my promises to constituents. I had no particular desire for an election before 2022 but the situation in the country will demand one before long and in failing to deliver it, I think the opposition have made a serious mistake.