Who is on Question Time tonight and where do they stand on Brexit? Here’s your guide…
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The BBC’s flagship current affairs programme tonight comes from the Mick Jagger Centre in Dartford. But whose answers will give you satisfaction? And, with Donald Trump in town, who has sympathy for the Devil? Here’s your guide…
Claire Perry
Who? Minister for business, energy and industrial strategy
Where is she on Brexit? Remain campaigner, now firmly in the Soft Brexit camp of Theresa May’s government
A solid Remainer who has said Brexit was “not the result I wanted, nor the outcome I believe is best for our country”. Has reluctantly conceded that “we need to get on with this exit, but do so in a way that preserves the maximum possible access to the Single Market and to the security and defence benefits that working together with EU member states can provide”. Coined the phrase “smart Brexit”, which hasn’t really caught on. Leaked WhatsApp messages in January showed her referring to “the sell-out traitor mob”, in remarks which could equally apply to the Question Time audience, as “mostly elderly retired men who do not have mortgages, school-aged children or caring responsibilities, so they represent the swivel-eyed few not the many we represent”.
Barry Gardiner
Who? Shadow international trade secretary
Where is he on Brexit? Proud Blairite turned Brownite turned Milifan to now fully paid-up Corbynista, Gardiner’s views on Brexit tend to vary according to whether he knows he’s being recorded or not. In April it emerged he had played down the risks of failing to resolve the Irish border issue post-Brexit – calling it a “shibboleth” – and suggested both the Irish government and Sinn Fein were exaggerating them, only to have to apologise. Then it turned out at the same private Brussels meeting he had said one of Labour’s six Brexit tests – to leave the single market while retaining all its benefits – “always has been bollocks and it remains it”. Retains Corbyn’s support as he’s publicly ultra-loyal and hates the media. Looks like Timothy Claypole from Rentaghost.
Piers Morgan
Who? Journalist and television personality
Where is he on Brexit? Remain voter who now thinks his fellow anti-Brexiteers should “get over it”
A Remain voter – he has said that “we lost” – Morgan now wins applause from the Brexit press daily for his attacks on Remain guests during his inexplicably popular Good Morning Britain. Last week he told Anna Soubry: ‘You say you accept the result of the referendum, but what you’ve just said is that you want to be a member of the customs union and the free market. That’s not Brexit.” This earned him the Express headline: “Piers Morgan STUNS Anna Soubry with BRUTAL single market point”. A friend of Donald Trump’s after appearing on his Celebrity Apprentice, Morgan has said: “He calls me ‘Champ’ because I won Celebrity Apprentice. It’s cool having the US president call you Champ.” Linguistic experts has concluded this might be the saddest sentence ever uttered by a grown man.
Gina Miller
Who? Businesswoman who won the court case forcing the government to give Parliament on Brexit
Where is she on Brexit? She doesn’t like it
The businesswoman whose fight to stop the government forcing through Brexit without giving Parliament a say ended in triumph at the High Court, Miller has since faced abuse and death threats from ardent Leavers. One man was sent to prison for posting “£5,000 for the first person to ‘accidentally’ run over this bloody troublesome first generation immigrant” on Facebook. Not actually a committed Europhile – her cause was the more legalistic one of the executive stripping power from the legislature – Miller has nevertheless become a heroine of the Remain movement. Has said that “prejudice is now worn as a badge and a sleeve of honour as people walk through the streets of Britain”. Unlikely to crack many jokes.
Charles Moore
Who? Journalist and former editor of the Daily Telegraph
Where is he on Brexit? Arch-Brexiteer who has referred to Remainers as “head-bangers”
Cartoonish old-school Tory and Margaret Thatcher fanboy, Moore is a long-term eurosceptic who has accused the EU of “imperial overstretch and imperialist doctrines”. Described Theresa May’s Chequers deal on Brexit as a “complete capitulation”. An open advocate of a no-deal Brexit and trade on WTO terms, he has compared EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier to the crocodile in Peter Pan who “has just swallowed Britain’s hand and liked the taste so much that he wants the rest of it”. The Old Etonian and former Spectator editor is a fervent critic of the BBC (too left-wing), the NHS (“a terrible organisation”), the Church of England (he converted to Catholicism in protest at the ordination of women priests) and modern life more generally.
Question Time is on BBC One at 10.45pm tonight (11.20pm in Northern Ireland).
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