Childish Chope blocks anti-FGM bill because he doesn’t know any better

Christopher Chope: He seems to think he should have the right to treat women’s genitals in any way he chooses – without any interest in what their owner might want.

How do you solve a problem like Christopher Chope?

The Conservative MP for Christchurch says he blocks private members’ Bills in Parliament because he doesn’t approve of them – but his behaviour in stopping a Bill safeguarding women against female genital mutilation (FGM) was against the wishes of his own prime minister and government.

Here’s Mrs May, discussing FGM on Twitter on February 6:

He is therefore putting his own narrow-minded attitude before the wishes of his government, his party, Parliament and the nation as a whole. That isn’t principle – it’s egotism.

One has to ask whether he would object if he knew somebody who had been subjected to this form of permanent bodily mutilation himself – or if it was a kind of torture to which he himself might have been subjected if he was unlucky enough to have been born into a culture that supported such barbarity.

Considering his previous objection to a Bill that would have prevented upskirting – the practice of pointing cameras up women’s skirts in order to take images of their underwear or genitals – one is drawn to conclude that he has an unhealthy interest in preventing women from protecting their private parts.

This Writer first heard about FGM in high school, and the thought of it turned my stomach. I don’t understand how anybody could possibly object to a law that would allow courts to issue protection orders if a woman was at risk of being subjected to it. There is no medical justification for FGM and the procedure violates the human rights of women and girls, according to the World Health Organisation.

But Mr Chope (he was awarded a knighthood by Theresa May last year, but it was for no very good reason and his behaviour does not justify any acknowledgement of it) seems to think he knows better. He doesn’t; his attitude belongs in the Dark Ages.

Now, measures to prevent FGM will have to be included in a government Bill, meaning a delay in which more women and girls may be forced to undergo genital mutilation.

Will Mr Chope accept responsibility for their pain and humiliation? If not, perhaps any such victims should take out a private prosecution against him.

Public opinion is certainly not with him – although that won’t bother this pig-headed individual in the slightest:

He is, as one might expect from a Tory, perfectly happy to support his government’s wishes when it harms the many and helps the few, as his Parliamentary voting record shows:

So perhaps we should simply accept that he blocked the Bill against FGM because this principled man believes in the principle behind FGM: That those with power are entitled to do anything they like with those who have none – and do all we can to remove this dinosaur, and his prehensile principles, from Parliament at the earliest opportunity.


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No Comments

  1. trev February 10, 2019 at 5:26 pm - Reply

    Chope is a disgrace. Sooner he pegs it the better.

  2. Justin February 10, 2019 at 5:32 pm - Reply

    Chope needs to be chopped out of politics with his gong taken away from him and sent to work in the mess his party are good at creating

  3. Jean Hardiman Smith February 10, 2019 at 5:54 pm - Reply

    I totally agree, but in the last paragraph maybe substitute prehensile for reprehensible or prehistoric? Both are accurate assessments of this man, He is loathsome in the extreme.

    • Mike Sivier February 13, 2019 at 9:24 am - Reply

      I had no idea that my representation of an MP as someone incapable of getting a grip would be so controversial!

  4. Clive Riches February 10, 2019 at 5:54 pm - Reply

    The man is an MP; in other words, his constituents vote him in so he can represent their views. If he truly is so childish, so deluded, then he is not fit for purpose and needs to be replaced.

  5. Stephen Allcroft February 10, 2019 at 6:24 pm - Reply

    I think you mean pre-historic rather than prehensile; the latter means having the ability to grip. I don’t think Chope’s “principles” grip anyone…

    • Mike Sivier February 13, 2019 at 9:22 am - Reply

      You take my point, then.

  6. Pat Sheehan February 11, 2019 at 12:49 am - Reply

    Very popular in his constituency I believe! Presumably providing them with all they could ever wish for from a parliamentary representative!

  7. nmac064 February 11, 2019 at 1:01 pm - Reply

    Who on earth votes for this odious and loathsome individual.

  8. Rik February 11, 2019 at 8:15 pm - Reply

    should be dragged out of the Commons by his feet & left in the gutter . . . Disgusting AH

    . . and have his Knighthood stripped for good measure. .

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