This week the Conservative Party starts the process of electing its new leader and our next Prime Minister. The Conservative MPs will reduce the field of five candidates to two, and those names will then be submitted to a ballot of all of the members of the party across the country. The winner of this vote will be announced on 9th September.
I will be supporting the Home Secretary, Theresa May to be our next Prime Minister. She is a serious and substantial person who has the experience to lead and unite our country at a challenging time. Theresa has been clear that she will honour the vote of the British people to leave the European Union, and we will formally start those negotiations in the New Year, once we have had the chance to finalise the details of our own position ahead of those talks. It is important that our Prime Minister can inspire confidence in our country and respect from other leaders around the world. I believe that Theresa May has all of those qualities.
In my experience of dealing with Theresa May, raising important issues affecting our area, such as Operation Stack and border security, I have always found her to be someone who is willing to listen, and act with the authority. Certainly the investments made by the Home Office in the last year have seen much improved security at the Channel Tunnel entrance in France and around the Port of Calais. They have also committed additional resources to protect the channel coast.
Last Friday, 1st July, marked the centenary of the first day of the Battle of the Somme, one of the bloodiest conflicts in the history of the British armed forces. At 7.30am, at a special service under the Step Short First World War centenary arch in Folkestone, we remembered the exact moment when the soldiers left their trenches to go over the top, and walked into the enemy fire. Over 19,000 men lost their lives that day and there were over 60,000 causalities. Many of those soldiers would have embarked from Folkestone to the western front, marching along the Leas, and down the Road of Remembrance to the harbour. It is important that we remember their sacrifice for freedom on this important anniversary.
Later that morning I also joined the annual service led by the Mayor of Folkestone at Shorncliffe Military Cemetery for Canada Day, which also falls on 1st July. On this day each year since the end of the First World War, children from local primary schools have placed flowers by the headstones of the more than 300 Canadian who are buried there. This follows a commitment made by the town to the people of Canada that we would care for the graves of their soldiers. This is always a moving ceremony, and particularly so this year, falling on the centenary of the Battle of the Somme.