Meon Valley MP Votes For Cut Foreign Aid Despite Previously Highlighting Its Benefits For UK

Meon Valley MP Flick Drummond today voted to cut foreign aid – despite just five years ago saying it helped the British economy by opening up new markets.

Tory MPs voted today to slash support for people in developing countries by £4 billion, despite it being a manifesto commitment.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson narrowly saw off an attempt by Tory rebels to block the cut, winning the Commons vote by 333 to 298

Former Prime Minister Theresa May was among the Tories to rebel saying No 10 was abandoning the world’s poorest.

Meon Valley MP Flick Drummond voted for the cut, despite just five years ago making a speech in which she extolled the virtues of foreign aid saying how helping developing countries succeed would lower the number of people wanting to migrate to Europe.

Speaking in August 2016, she said: “We must always be on the look-out for new markets and new partners to deal with. The investment in developing countries brings them into our markets, as we can see now across Asia.

“It is also vital that we get the world’s young into work, for their own dignity and personal development as well as for their economic future.

“With the rise of the internet, people in poorer counties can see the lifestyle that we enjoy here in the developed world and it is no surprise that they want to migrate here.

“By developing other countries, we also help to prevent the large amount of migration that is denuding countries of their most valuable resource—their informed and educated population.

“Our foreign aid must be directed towards building the economies of developing countries and it must continue to do so until it is no longer needed.”