Steve Baker makes the case for compromise

To Buckingham, where a tribe of true believers met on Saturday to attend the Margaret Thatcher Freedom Festival. Suella Braverman was the star turn in the evening, with Sir Iain Duncan Smith amusing attendees with his tales of Eurocrat meetings. But it was Steve Baker – the onetime arch-rebel turned Northern Ireland minister – who most intrigued Mr S with his pitch to activists on the need for compromise. Speaking three days after the vote in the House of Commons on Rishi Sunak’s Windsor Framework, Baker said that his decision to back the deal was based on his concerns about the government’s fate if he did not support it:

It would be too bashful of me to pretend that I wasn’t pivotal in this journey with the Windsor Framework, as anyone can see on the TV onwards. So the choice I faced on the Sunday night and into the Monday was: would I be backing the deal or resigning? What would it have meant if I had resigned and opposed the deal? Big news.