A Brexit voter appearing on BBC Question Time has called out the excuses made by politicians for leaving the European Union not living up to the promises – as a prominent supporter of quitting the bloc claimed the country hasn’t “properly Brexited”.
The corporation’s flagship politics show on Thursday held a “special” in Clacton-on-Sea in Essex to mark the seventh anniversary of the 2016 vote. Some 70% of people in the area voted to get out of the union and only Brexit voters were in the audience for the programme.
It was held on the same day interest rates were hiked for the 13th month in a row as the UK’s rate of inflation remains higher than other major economies, with Brexit in part being blamed.
On the show, panellist Ben Habib, a businessman and former Brexit Party MEP, who is now part of the successor Reform UK, claimed the country hasn’t “properly Brexited” and blamed former prime minister Boris Johnson for being “loose in his association with the truth when he promised to get Brexit done”.
But it was too much for one audience member, who responded directly to Habib’s comments.
She said: “Literally the first thing that people with your opinion say ... it’s like Brexit could be good if it went to a different school. I’m so sick of that.
“Where is the gumption from both Labour and the Conservatives to say, actually, no, this is what we’re going to do about it.
“This boils my blood when all that is rolled out is ‘well, there could have been a good Brexit if ...’”
Habib later claimed that Irish prime minister Leo Varadkar and then deputy Simon Coveney “weaponised the border and threatened violence”.
Another audience member also said Brexit “hasn’t started” as a result of the pandemic and war in Ukraine.
Elsewhere on the show, Alastair Campbell hit out at “conmen” Johnson and Nigel Farage as he told Brexit voters they were “lied to”.
Campbell, the Tony Blair-era Labour Party spin chief, said they had been told it “would be pain-free” and “all be upsides”, as he pointed to the fall in the pound, a lack of a trade deal with the US and the claim of more money for the NHS.