Wine merchant blasts Jacob Rees Mogg over Brexit red tape on Question Time

The director of a wine merchant has eviscerated Jacob Rees Mogg on BBC Question Time, branding complications in importing and exporting wine due to Brexit red tape as a “joke”.

The Question Time audience member, who said he was a lifelong Conservative voter, and has been a director in the wine industry for 30 years, took Rees Mogg to task over perceived benefits of leaving the European Union.

“I have experienced first-hand just how terrible things have become post-Brexit,” he said.

When asked by host Fiona Bruce to expand on the issues he is facing as a result of Brexit, Graham said, “Just from a bureaucracy point of view, the paperwork … I’ve imported and exported wine for 30 years for leading wine companies. We just see delays, we see paperwork problems, everything has become so much more complicated.”

And quoting Boris Johnson’s now-infamous proclamation that he had an “oven-ready” Brexit deal, the wine merchant commented, “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.”

“It’s about as oven ready as a frozen turkey taken out five minutes before Christmas day, it really is a joke.”

This #bbcqt audience member gives his first hand experience on how the wine industry has been affected by Brexit.
https://t.co/gYZvA5DfpT pic.twitter.com/KZlsdkB8oq

— BBC Question Time (@bbcquestiontime) December 15, 2022

He continued, “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.

“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 responded by saying, “On wine, we have deregulated the import of wine from Australia and New Zealand – so we’re making it easier for other countries to export to the UK.”

The wine industry director said this was “completely not true.”

Miles Beale, chief executive of the Wine and Spirit Trade Association commented on the debate, “[if] you are involved in importing or exporting wines and spirits – or probably any other drink and most other foods between the UK and the EU – it’s now more complicated than it was … We are trying to create a business and commercial environment for our members where there is as little friction as possible; and it is unquestionably true that there is a lot of friction.”

He said Rees Mogg was correct in asserting that tariffs had gone down on wines from Australia and New Zealand, but that this did not paint a full picture of the situation.

“We think getting rid of the tariffs on imported Australian wine benefits wine traders by about £22 million pounds a year but that is counteracted by what the UK government wants to do with a new duty system where they want to tax alcohol according to strength. An additional £92 million per year, almost five times as much, under the new alcohol duty regime – simply because Australia’s climate is hotter than any other wine-producing region and that is what makes their grapes produce wine of a higher alcohol content,” Beale said.

An article in The New European has identified the audience member as John Hearn.

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