Conservative candidate treated voters ‘with contempt’ when she blamed them for government's Brexit failure

A Tory candidate has been accused of treating her constituents with contempt, after she claimed they were to blame for the governments inability to get Brexit through parliament. Photo: Twitter - Credit: Archant

A Tory candidate has been accused of treating her constituents ‘with contempt’, after she claimed they were to blame for the government’s inability to get Brexit through parliament.

Lia Nici, who is standing in the Leave voting Great Grimsby, said it was the people living in her constituency seat who were to blame for the UK’s failure to leave the EU at each of the previously announced dates.

Nici said it was not the fault of politicians, but that it’s “a failure of people who live in northern towns like Grimsby who have Labour MPs who have consistently voted against the democratic vote in their constituencies.”

Her comments, made on BBC Radio Humberside, have been described as an “unfortunate turn of phrase” which treats people “with contempt for their choices” by Labour’s Melanie Onn, the incumbent MP Nici is challenging in this election.

Onn, who has been Great Grimsby’s MP since 2015, did vote against Theresa May’s deal but voted for the prime minister’s Brexit deal.

71% of constituents in Great Grimsby voted for the UK to leave the European Union.

READ MORE: Brexit Party sacks high-profile MEP saying he has tried to ‘repeatedly undermine’ Nigel Farage READ MORE: ‘Deluded’ Brexit Party MEP claims she is being ‘censored’ in national radio interviewWhile Onn campaigned for Remain, she said she had voted for Brexit “whenever I thought there was a chance of it succeeding”.

It also emerged on the BBC interview that Nici had campaigned and voted for Remain herself while she was a councillor for the Conservatives on North East Lincolnshire Council.