Jeremy Clarkson 'speaks for millions' as he says Brexit 'hasn't made our lives better'

After writing about flinging excrement at Meghan Markle and protesting the impact of the government’s inheritance tax hike on farmers, Jeremy Clarkson has now taken social media by surprise by saying if he bumps into someone who thinks Brexit was “all a brilliant idea”, he gets “so cross my hair catches fire and my teeth start to itch”.

That doesn’t actually happen, obviously, but in a piece for The Sunday Times, the Clarkson’s Farm presenter said the UK’s decision to leave the European Union “hasn’t made our lives better in any way that I can see”.

He writes: “It’s bad enough these days going to Europe as a tourist, standing in the passport queue behind three million Nigerians and a plane-load of confused people from Japan. And then getting a text from [my wife] Lisa, who’s already by the pool with a glass of wine, because she’s Irish.

“But it’s a billion times worse if you go there with a film crew. Because, today, you have to list everything you’re taking and its value and its serial number.

“Every lens. Every cable. Every reflector. Every 4×4. Everything.

“And then, after you’ve spent several days doing all that, you pay a company thousands of pounds to put it all on a form, which is called a carnet.”

Clarkson then goes on to reference a trip to the Netherlands for Clarkson’s Farm, revealing while he has “crossed many tricky borders over the years” that “nothing has ever taken as long as it took us to get from post-Brexit England into France”.

“And what’s the upside? We are told it’s better to be governed by a democratically elected parliament than some bankers in Brussels, but 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.

“Lord Sir Sugar said recently that the biggest mistake in his lifetime was Brexit and that if he were prime minister, he’d crawl on his hands and knees over there, begging to be let back in. I’d go with him.”

The News Agents’ Lewis Goodall was among those who backed Clarkson’s stance on the issue, writing on Twitter/X that Brexit has “made travelling to the EU with any kind of professional equipment nightmarish”:

Political economist and Observer columnist Will Hutton said Clarkson “speaks for millions of us” when it comes to his “contempt for Brexit”:

And one social media user wondered if Clarkson has “fallen and hit his head or just had an epiphany”:

If this and Clarkson’s recent comments about Labour’s inheritance tax policy has you thinking the broadcaster could have a political career in the future, one Tory MP has already said he would welcome him into the Conservative Party.

Crikey.

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