‘This is NOT Brexit, we need a TRUE Brexiteer in charge!’ - BBC QT panellist attacks May
THERESA MAY is “not delivering Brexit” and the country needs a “proper Brexiteer” to take control of the process, a journalist insisted on BBC Question Time last night.
Question Time: Panellist says May is NOT delivering Brexit
Melanie Phillips staged the intervention. Ms Phillips is a Times columnist and has won the Orwell Prize for Journalism. She was appearing on the panel on the BBC’s flagship debate show, which was hosted by Fiona Bruce for the first time.
Ms Phillips made an impassioned case for why the Government is “not delivering Brexit”, arguing they needed to wake up to the fact “there is no compromise” because you “cannot be half in, half out” of the EU.
The writer railed against Mrs May’s “flawed strategy”, although she admired the Prime Minister’s “noble motive” and “staying power”.
She said: “We should have had, no matter what you think whether you are a Brexiteer or Remain, we should have had someone conducting those negotiations from our side playing the hardest possible hardball against those people.
“You needed a proper Brexiteer.
“You wanted a proper Brexiteer who understood it’s either you are in or you are out.”
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Ms Phillips alluded to the fact the Prime Minister was “caught between the 52 and the 48 percent”, saying Mrs May’s “fatal mistake” was to think she could “square the circle and bridge the gap”.
The journalist continued, saying she admired Mrs May’s “resilience, courage and stamina”, but the Prime Minister had missed the point of “there is no compromise”.
She said: “You cannot be half in, half out.
“They are not delivering Brexit.”
Responding to an audience question about whether Mrs May’s Government has lost control of the Brexit process, Ms Phillips said: “I don’t think it was ever in control of the process.
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“I think from the very start Mrs May gave control of the process to the European Union.
“It was the European Union that was calling all the shots in the negotiations.
“Her strategy was flawed from the very start.”
New presenter Fiona Bruce asked Ms Phillips whom she believed would do a better job, reminding her she had once touted Nigel Farage as a potential option.
Ms Bruce asked: “Was that a moment of madness?”
To which Ms Philips responded: “It was a moment of ‘high emotion’”.
However, when pressed, Ms Phillips refused to give a definitive answer, saying “I won’t be pushed”.