A Scottish Conservative MSP was left floundering on BBC Newsnight last night as the live audience revealed what they really thought about the state of the country right now after Brexit.
Things started to go downhill for the Tory Craig Hoy after host Kirsty Wark asked the Paisley crowd: “Can I just ask you, hands up if you feel better off since the last general election?”
Not one hand went up in the entire room.
Several people even awkwardly looked around at their fellow audience members to see if anyone at all felt wealthier.
Wark quickly concluded: “Right ok, I think that’s pretty decisive.”
This is not an entirely surprising result, considering in the last five years there have been two economic recessions, inflation hit a 40-year high and the cost of living crisis is still rumbling on.
However, the audience were not so quiet when, moments later, Hoy said it was not clear whether these problems stemmed from Brexit or Covid.
Addressing questions about the accumulating problems UK businesses are facing, Hoy told the crowd: “I would accept that there’s been quite a lot of tumult in the operative environment.”
“And problems?” Wark asked.
“And problems over the last three years,” he added. “Which of those relate to Brexit and which of those relate to Covid pandemic, I’m not entirely sure.”
A wave of noise came from frustrated audience members then, although Hoy tried to keep on talking.
The audience speaker who first suggested that all political parties needed to be addressing the problems caused by our withdrawal from the EU spoke up again: “Goldman Sachs has come out and said 5% reduction in GDP – that also impinges on the cost of living crisis.
“That compounds the problem.
“UK households are worse off because of Brexit.”
Hoy faced further backlash when he tried to say one of the major benefits of Brexit was the rapid rollout of the Covid vaccine – prompting another groan of frustration from the audience.
One member of the crowd said this was a “dubious claim that’s been seriously challenged” and asked Hoy to suggest another benefit of the UK’s withdrawal from the EU.
The MSP cited the CPTPP, the trans-pacific trade partnership which the UK joined in 2023.
However, this did not impress the audience either, with many people visibly shaking their heads and looking exasperated at that response.
The Liberal Democrat MP Wendy Chamberlain, sat besides Hoy on the panel, sided with the audience when she said: “Nobody in parliament thinks Brexit is going well, even the Brexiters.”