Jeremy Clarkson Says He Cannot Be Friends With Anyone Who Voted For Brexit

Posted on 10/02/2025 by Boris Clair

Jeremy Clarkson has said he cannot get on with people who voted for Brexit having experienced the consequences.

The TV presenter, who voted to remain in the EU, said he can generally spend time with people who have different opinions to him, although there is “an exception” – anyone who voted to Leave in the 2016 referendum.

In an article for The Times, he said: “It’s not so bad if they put their hands up and admit they made a mistake. But if I encounter someone who still thinks it was all a brilliant idea, I get so cross my hair catches fire and my teeth start to itch.”

He added: “Brexit hasn’t made our lives better in any way that I can see.”

In the piece – which is headlined, ‘Brexit makes me want to sit in a gutter and weep’ – Clarkson explained that he came to this conclusion after an experience linked to his farm.

The presenter claimed that when he was supposed to be travelling through the Channel Tunnel to Calais for part of his Prime Video series, Clarkson’s Farm, he said he ended up being stuck in “a gigantic lorry park full of trucks from every conceivable European country”.

As he and his colleague had to take filming equipment with them, he said he had to wait for two hours for “someone in a cabin to stamp our form” before they could even reach the tunnel.

They then had to do the same thing at the other end, once arriving in France.

He said: “I have crossed many tricky borders over the years and the paperwork always takes time.

“Iraq to Turkey took a moment, that’s for sure. And Rwanda into Tanzania was challenging as well. But nothing has ever taken as long as it us to get from post-Brexit England into France.”

The former Top Gear presenter also took aim at the government’s stance that Brexit is a success because “it’s better to be governed by a democratically elected parliament than some bankers in Brussels”.

He said: “I’m not sure about that. I’d certainly prefer the bankers to Starmer and Reeves. I’d prefer anything. The fourth form of my local school. My dogs. Trump, even.”

Clarkson has already made his opposition to the current government clear, having joined a protest over the Budget last November.

He opposed changes to the inheritance tax rules, and accused chancellor Rachel Reeves of taking the figures she has used to justify the Budget “from the sixth form debating society that she was no doubt a member of”.

Yvette Cooper Rules Out The UK Signing Up To Giving Young People Free Movement To The EU

Posted on 02/02/2025 by Boris Clair

Yvette Cooper has ruled out agreeing a deal with Brussels to allow young people to move freely between the UK and the European Union.

In comments which will be a huge blow to millions of young Brits, the home secretary said it was “not the right starting point for us at all”.

A so-called “youth mobility scheme” is believed to be one of the EU’s main demands in negotiations over a new trade deal with the UK.

Cooper’s comments came as Keir Starmer prepares to travel to Brussels on Monday as part of the Labour government’s attempts to “reset” relations with the bloc.

On Sky News this morning, the home secretary told presenter Trevor Phillips that not returning to free movement, the EU’s customs union or the single market were the government’s “red lines” in the talks.

Phillips then said: “Let’s test that out. How are you getting on with negotiating a youth mobility scheme with the EU?”

Cooper replied: “We’ve been clear that we need net migration to come down. Under the Conservatives, net migration quadrupled in the space of four years. That’s the wrong thing for the UK.

“So we’re clear that net migration needs to come down, so that’s why this is not an approach that we are looking for.”

Phillips then said: “So no youth mobility scheme?”

The home secretary said: “That’s not the right starting point for us at all because what we need to do is to bring net migration down.”

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Yvette Cooper, moments ago, ruling out any chance or possibility of a Youth Mobility Scheme with the EU.

\"This is not an approach we are looking for\" pic.twitter.com/smr92c3yOA

— MrBounceBack.com (@Bounce_BackLoan) February 2, 2025

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Yvette Cooper, moments ago, ruling out any chance or possibility of a Youth Mobility Scheme with the EU.

“This is not an approach we are looking for” pic.twitter.com/smr92c3yOA

— MrBounceBack.com (@Bounce_BackLoan) February 2, 2025

Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesperson Calum Miller said: “The government’s refusal to negotiate a youth mobility scheme with the EU is short-sighted and a bitter blow to young people across the UK.

“A youth mobility deal would be good for our economy, especially our tourism and hospitality sectors, while giving young British people the opportunity to work and study abroad.

“This would be a win-win, Labour ministers need to stop repeating the failed approach of the Conservatives and listen to young people instead.”

Just 3 In 10 Brits Still Think It Was Right To Leave The EU In Record Low

Posted on 30/01/2025 by Boris Clair

Only three in 10 Brits still say it was right for the UK to leave the European Union, according to a new poll.

That’s the lowest support for Brexit recorded since 2016, when the EU referendum happened and the country narrowly voted (52% to 48%) to leave.

The YouGov findings were released on the eve of the fifth anniversary of the UK formally quitting the bloc.

The data also found that 55% of Brits think it was wrong for the UK to choose Brexit nine years ago.

And that number only increases when looking at the results from the younger generation.

Among those who were not able to vote in 2016, who are now aged 18-24, 75% say Brexit was a mistake compared to just 10% who say it was a good idea.

Even one in six Leave voters (18%) now say it was wrong for the UK to leave the EU, although 66% of Leavers still think it was the right move.

Meanwhile, 88% of Remainers stand by their vote to stay in, compared to 7% who now think it was right to leave.

Overall, a total of 62% of Brits think Brexit has been a failure so far, with just 11% saying it was a success.

Dr Mike Galsworthy, chair of the anti-Brexit think tank the European Movement UK, said the survey shows voters are “becoming increasingly fed up with the negative impacts that leaving the EU is having on our country”.

He said being outside the European single market costs the UK economy £115 billion a year, and the public finances more than £40 billion a year.

He added: “We have seen soaring import costs, increased workforce shortages and reams of new red tape.

“No wonder exports to the EU by our small businesses are down by 30%, and 20,000 small firms across UK have stopped all exports to the EU.”

He also pointed out that research from LSE shows a £27bn decline in exports sent to the EU – noting that sum exceeds the £22bn black hole Labour say the Tories left behind in the public finances.

He added: “Politicians must now face the facts – five years on, Brexit is still an ongoing accident, and its damage is far from done.”

It comes as Labour faces growing pressure to move closer to the bloc and set up a youth mobility scheme which would enable young people from the EU to live in the UK and vice versa.

However, prime minister Keir Starmer has already ruled out setting up such a programme.

In August, he said he was “absolutely clear” that the government wanted to reset relations with Europe.

But he added: “We do not have plans for a youth mobility scheme but do have plans for closer relationship between us and the EU.”

He continued: “That does not involve reversing Brexit or re-entering the single market or the customs union.

“But it does mean a closer relationship on a number of fronts, including the economy, including defence, including exchanges.”

Brexiters Up In Arms As Former Chief EU Negotiator Secures Top Job As French PM

Posted on 05/09/2024 by Boris Clair

The EU’s former Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier has just been appointed to be France’s new prime minister – and Eurosceptics with long memories are not happy.

French politics has been going through a tumultuous period since president Emmanuel Macron’s party lost its majority in parliament and the far-right saw a huge uptick in support.

Although Macron chose Barnier, the former EU commissioner still needs to survive a vote of confidence in parliament to get the job.

And while the French president may see Barnier as a unifying figure, Brexiters over in the UK certainly do not.

Barnier led the EU negotiations with Britain between 2016 and 2021. He was known for taking a particularly firm stance against the UK, and calling then-PM Boris Johnson a “bulldozer”.

In response to Barnier’s appointment, Reform leader and Clacton MP Nigel Farage posted on X: “Michel Barnier becomes the new French prime minister. An EU fanatic that will suit sell-out Starmer.”

Former Brexit Party MEP, Alex Phillips, posted a much angrier message, writing that his appointment was proof “the machine doesn’t even try to hide the fact anymore that instead of rigging elections, it just ignores them.”

Meanwhile, John hayes, the Tory MP for South Holland and Deepings, one of the constituencies with the highest level of support for Leave in 2016, lashed out at the former negotiator.

told GB News: “We thought we’d seen the last of ‘Monsieur Barnier’ after the Brexit negotiations – where he was determined to get Britain the worst possible deal.”

Former Tory leader and MP for Chingford and Woodford, Iain Duncan Smith, also told the broadcaster that Barnier’s appointment “shows the desperation of France”.

A question mark remains over Barnier’s job, though, as he still needs most of parliament to back him.

Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Rally in France, has already announced her party would not back Barnier in a coalition government.

Nigel Farage Reveals 1 Unexpected Element Of Life In Parliament – And It’s To Do With Brexit

Posted on 23/07/2024 by Boris Clair

Nigel Farage expressed surprise that this was a “Remainer” parliament in his maiden Commons speech today.

The Reform UK leader, who was elected to the Commons for the first time earlier this month after seven failed attempts, revived some old EU tensions.

The famous Eurosceptic said: “I spent nearly 21 years as a member of the European Parliament in Brussels.

“I have to say, this place is very different indeed.

“It’s smaller, there is no chauffeur driven Mercedes available for each member, no large lump sums of money which you don’t have to spend on anything or show receipts for, and I wonder, perhaps that is why so many in the British political system love the European Union so much – it is a rather wonderful place to work.”

But, he added: “What I perhaps didn’t expect was to come here and find I am more outnumbered here with my Reform team than we were in the European Parliament.

“There are more supporters of Brexit in the European Parliament than I sense there are in this parliament of 2024.

“This is very much a Remainers’ parliament, I suspect in many cases, it’s really a Rejoiners’ parliament.”

There are five Reform MPs in this parliament, having had just one before the election – Tory defector, Lee Anderson, moved to Farage’s party earlier this year.

Reform was previously known as the Brexit Party, and used to advocate for no-deal with the EU – the harshest version of Brexit possible.

The Brexit Party also won the most seats at the 2019 European Parliament election in the UK, but won no seats at the general election that year.

And now, eight years after the referendum and four years since the UK officially left the trade bloc of the EU, it seems more people would like to return to the European fold.

A Techne survey for Independent Media from June showed 43% of voters are in favour of rejoining the bloc, compared with 40% who want to stay out.

Meanwhile, Farage has come under criticism for going to the US days after he was elected to support his friend Donald Trump.

Farage said “it was the right thing that I came” after Trump faced a failed assassination attempt.

Labour Minister Patrick Vallance Calls For Easier Migration From EU To Boost Science Industry

Posted on 10/07/2024 by Boris Clair

A Labour minister has called for easier migration to the UK from the European Union in an apparent break from government policy.

Patrick Vallance, who was given a life peerage and appointed science minister following the election, said “Brexit was definitely a problem”.

He said he wanted to see the visa rules loosened to make it easier for scientists and their families to live in the UK.

Vallance’s comments put him at odds with Keir Starmer, who has insisted Labour will not bring back freedom of movement with the EU.

Speaking on Radio 4′s World At One, Vallance , who was the government’s chief scientific adviser during the Covid pandemic, said leaving the EU had damaged the competitiveness of the UK science sector.

He said: “Brexit was definitely a problem for science. We were part of a very successful European funding scheme with very large collaborations right the way across Europe which took a setback when we had to leave that scheme, and getting back into it has been a big achievement. I’m really pleased we are back in it.”

That was a reference to the Horizon scheme, a Europe-wide scientific co-operation project which the UK has agreed to rejoin after initially leaving as a result of the Brexit vote.

Asked if he would be pushing the prime minister to agree closer ties with the EU, even if that meant making concessions on free movement, the minister said: “You can’t do the type of science that everyone is trying to do to make progress in isolation.

“You need brains that come with other backgrounds, other thought processes, other training.”

On loosening the visa rules, Vallance said: “There is an opportunity there to try and make this easier for people who come in to do contributions to scientific knowledge creation and to companies.

“We’ve got to be realistic as to how we do that, but we need to be as competitive as other countries in terms of attracting that talent.”

He added: “There are lots of visa issues, including the cost, which is very high at the moment for people coming to the UK, that needs to be looked at.

“We need to think about how we make the environment right for people to come who we want to have here contributing to science.”

Journalist Asks David Cameron Outright If Rwanda Bill Is A Consequence Of Brexit

Posted on 24/04/2024 by Boris Clair

David Cameron was asked outright by a journalist if the government’s controversial Rwanda bill is a result of the UK’s departure from the EU.

Speaking shortly after parliament finally passed the legislation to deport asylum seekers to Africa on Monday night, the foreign secretary defended the policy – but dodged the questions about his main legacy, Brexit.

ITV News’ deputy political editor Anushka Asthana asked: “Hand on heart, if this had come up when you were PM, would you have gone for this policy?”

Cameron, who was in No.10 from 2010 to 2016, said: “Well, we had a totally different situation, because we had a situation where we could return people directly to France.

“Now I would love that to be the case again – that’s the most sensible thing.

“People land on a beach in Kent, you take them straight back to France, you therefore break the model of the people smugglers.”

“Shouldn’t you be trying to get that?” Asthana asked.

“Well, that’s not available,” the foreign secretary replied.

The journalist asked: “Because of Brexit?”

Cameron ended up resigning as prime minister in 2016 because his campaign to stay in the EU lost.

He did not answer Asthana directly and just said: “Well, because of the situation we’re in.”

The foreign secretary did not explain what he meant by that.

Rishi Sunak has also threatened to take the UK out of the European Court of Human Rights if its judges try to stop the Rwanda policy altogether.

Cameron told Asthana that the UK has to deal with illegal immigration, but added: “I don’t think it’s necessary to leave the ECHR, I don’t think that needs to happen to make this policy work.”

Ex-Tory Chair Lord Patten Shreds Party For Becoming ‘More Right-Wing And More Unpopular’

Posted on 21/03/2024 by Boris Clair

The Conservative’s former chairman has launched a bruising attack on the party for becoming “more right-wing”.

In an interview on Tonight with Andrew Marr on LBC, Lord Chris Patten, a former cabinet minister, also labelled Brexit the “biggest disaster in British policy making since the Second World War”.

‘I was Chair of the Conservative Party when there was one.’
‘They’ve lost the most important attribute: the benefit of the doubt.’

Former Conservative Party Chair Lord Patten tells @AndrewMarr9 the failings of the current government are mostly due to ‘the disaster of Brexit’. pic.twitter.com/BdQY2EEKSI

— LBC (@LBC) March 21, 2024

The Conservative grandee, who has also been an EU Commissioner and the last governor of Hong Kong, was asked about the upcoming general election, and whether there was a chance of a repeat of the 1992 vote, when Lord Patten was the Conservative Party chairman and John Major pulled off a victory despite more than a decade of Tory rule.

He said voters would not give the current government the “benefit of the doubt”.

Lord Patten said: “When asked about my experiences of being party chairman of the Conservative Party, and what the relevance is to my views on things today, I make initially the very important point that I was chairman of the Conservative Party when there was one.

“And I think what we’ve seen over the years, is the Conservative Party becoming more right-wing, as it becomes more right-wing, it becomes more populist, as it becomes more populist, it becomes more unpopular, as it becomes more unpopular, it becomes more right-wing.

“And I think what it does in the process is lose something which won John Major the election 1992.”

On Brexit, Lord Patten said: “What nobody is allowed to say is that Brexit was a bloody disaster.

“And you hear politicians, even ones I quite respect, talking about the difficulties in the economy because of the war in Ukraine, and the effect on oil prices, the effects on the economy of Covid.

“What neither of those issues are ones where to use an awful social scientist’s word, we had agency. So, you can perfectly well say that was bad luck for the government. But Brexit we did ourselves. And it was the biggest disaster in British policymaking I think since the Second World War.”

He went on: “I’m 79, I don’t think there’s a chance in hell of us re-joining European Union in my lifetime. .. but I do think there are better ways of organising our relationship with our biggest market, and we should do them, and we shouldn’t when we try to do them, be put off by tabloid headlines’.

This Image Marks A Major New Era For Northern Ireland. Here’s Why

Posted on 03/02/2024 by Boris Clair

Michelle O’Neill has just become Northern Ireland’s first minister – making her the first ever leader of a nationalist party to take on the key role.

She was pictured officially taking up the role on Saturday when the Northern Ireland Assembly formally returned.

It also comes after almost two years of deadlock in the Northern Ireland Assembly – also known as Stormont – which stopped the devolved government from sitting at all.

Although the Good Friday Agreement means both nationalists and unionists have to share power for Stormont to operate, politicians from the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) held the position of first minister for more than 100 years – until now.

Elections held in May 2022 saw nationalist party Sinn Fein secure the largest number of seats, meaning its own politicians could take the top job in the Executive for the first time ever.

The DUP, as the second largest group in the Assembly, are therefore entitled to install a politician in the deputy first minister role.

Technically, Sinn Fein should have been leading Stormont since the last election, but DUP have been boycotting the government altogether.

In February 2022, the DUP withdrew from the Northern Ireland Assembly in an effort to make Downing Street act on their concerns that the post-Brexit deal was making the region too separate from the rest of the UK.

Trade going from Britain to Northern Ireland was subject to intense checks, unlike trade going between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

This has been a major sticking point ever since Brexit negotiations began after the EU referendum.

The DUP only agreed to a deal with Westminster to resolve the deadlock on Tuesday, and the legislation was fast-tracked through the UK parliament in a bid to get Stormont restored.

According to DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, the new deal means there will “no longer be physical checks or identity checks save where, as normal anywhere in the UK, there are suspicions of smuggling of criminal activity”.

O’Neill celebrated the new deal and the restoration of Stormont, describing Tuesday was a “day of optimism”.

She also told the Washington Post she would be a “minister for all” during her remaining term.

The next Stormont election will be held no later than May 2027.

Question Time Audience Member Calls Out Claim UK Hasn’t ‘Properly Brexited’

Posted on 23/06/2023 by Boris Clair

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 …’”

Brexit voting lady in black, “To Ben Habib, people with your opinion always say that Brexit would be different if it went to a different school.. I’m so sick of hearing that.” #BBCQT pic.twitter.com/aIB7394Ya3

— Farrukh (@implausibleblog) June 22, 2023

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.

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.

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