Audience members on the BBC’s flagship politics show have expressed their frustration about the impact of Brexit on their lives – with one suggesting the “oven ready” withdrawal agreement was more like a “frozen turkey taken out five minutes before Christmas day”.
While leaving the EU has fallen down the political agenda, with no major political party arguing for the UK to rejoin even the single market, BBC’s Question Time aired the frustrations of some over the current situation – from trade to travel.
One “lifelong” Tory voter let off steam about the UK’s decision to quit to the bloc having impacted Britain’s wine industry, with former minster and Brexit evangelist Jacob Rees-Mogg taking the flack.
The audience member said: “I’ve spent the last 30 years as a director in the wine industry so I have experienced first-hand just how terrible things have become post-Brexit.
“I find it incredibly disappointing, as a lifelong Conservative voter, to hear Jacob saying all of this stuff.”
He added: “Just from a bureaucracy point of view and the paperwork, I mean everything.
“I’ve been importing and exporting wine for 30 years for a leading wine company and we just see delays, we see paperwork problems, everything has become so much more complicated.
“And the whole point about this being ‘oven ready’, it’s about as oven ready as a frozen turkey taken out five minutes before Christmas day, it really is a joke.”
He added: “I think it’s time someone starts being honest. None of the political parties are actually talking about Brexit and it’s one of the most fundamental problems we’ve got.”
He went on: “I look at the fact that people can tell untruths time and time again and then they are just forgotten, and Brexit was the beginning of all this, and I think as a society it’s incredibly worrying about where this is going to lead to.”
Rees-Mogg, the former business secretary, cited democracy, corruption in Brussels and holidays to Portugal as examples of the benefits of Brexit.
When another audience member criticised the long wait at border control when visiting Spain post-Brexit, Rees-Mogg suggested the British public go “where they are welcome”.
“If the Spanish don’t want British custom there is no need to spend your hard earned money in Spain,” he added, highlighting the virtues of Portugal recognising “having British tourists is a good thing to do”.