Joy Morrissey MP on finding the middle ground after Brexit and why it’s time to make politics boring again.
For my last episode of the season, I’m joined by my fellow American in London: Joy Morrissey. Joy is the Member of Parliament for Beaconsfield and currently serves as Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. I wanted to talk to Joy in part because she has such an incredible story. She’s only the third American-born female MP in UK history, the first to enter Parliament after a general election, and the first to hold a seat in over 80 years. At the 2019 election, Joy unseated Dominic Grieve, the former UK Attorney General who had held the seat for two decades. I also wanted to understand what being a Conservative meant in a post-Brexit context and so that’s exactly what I did. We delve into how she first got involved in politics and why, despite voting Leave in 2016, she once thought she’d be working for the European Commission. We explore healthcare inequality in the US, the rise of nationalism and finding the middle ground in divided political cultures, how women are carrying the uneven burden of child-care in the pandemic, and why it’s well worth time we make politics boring again (along with many other topics along the way). Delivering balanced and intelligent answers to some really quite probing questions, and proving that you can disagree without being disagreeable, Joy is exactly the type of elected official we need more of. So until I see you all again in September with another batch of good troublemakers doing power differently, stay brave, stay kind and stay powerful. You can change everything for the better.
