Tory conference: Michael Gove claims breaking up UK would be ‘vandalism’ and turn back ‘decades of progress’

Michael Gove has claimed breaking up the UK would be an act of “vandalism” that would turn back “decades of progress”.

The Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities told a CPS event on Sunday that Britain was the most “successful country in the world”.

Speaking on the first day of the Tory conference in Manchester, Mr Gove urged them to reject calls to break up the Union.

Levelling-Up minister Michael Gove. Picture: PA

He said: “The United Kingdom is the single most successful country in the world and we’re successful because we’re stronger together.

“There is no other country which is a multi-national, multicultural and multi-racial success story in the way that the United Kingdom is.

“To break up this nation of families would be an act of vandalism, but also be an attempt to turn over decades of progress”.

The Surrey Heath MP also suggested the representation of Britain by separatists was false.

Michael Gove has claimed breaking up the UK would turn back "decades of progress"

He explained: “There are critiques of the existence of the United Kingdom, and those assaults and those critiques come from a variety of areas.

“In particular, the values of those of us who live in England are different from the values of those who live in Scotland, that somehow England is the home to an arrogant and out-of-touch elite.

“The other challenge that we have is to those on the left who regard the whole enterprise as somehow illegitimate.

“That we are the inheritors of colonial oppression and we should be ashamed of these statues in our streets.

“It’s not much a caricature as a grotesque, misrepresentation of the truth because the United Kingdom is not a historical artefact.”