An audience member was applauded after calmly handling an increasing irate Leave voter on Thursday night’s BBC Question Time.
Speaking on the show, which was this week held in Burton upon Trent, the young woman initially explained: “I think the problem is that the Leave guys didn’t actually know what they were campaigning for so those of us voting also didn’t know what was going to happen.
“It was a campaign based on ‘we’re going to leave the EU hopefully but we don’t really know what’s going to happen after that’.
“So the hard Brexit/soft Brexit, people that voted to stay generally were the young people who are actually going to be affected by it.
“You’re just going ’doesn’t matter about you lot, we’re just going to go for the hard Brexit, get on with it. You might have kids, you might have grandkids, you’re going to have to live with it.’”
But her comments provoked ire in an older Leave voter, who told her: “I’m working, I’m a taxpayer. I could say ‘I’m older than you, I’m wiser than you, life experience’, so my vote is worth more, it’s more valuable in that aspect. It’s not fair, but it’s a comeback.”
Unperturbed, she fired back: “What says you’ve got more life experience? Just because you’re older doesn’t mean you’ve done that much.”
As the audience laughed and applauded, the man began to get more passionate but she calmly cut across him and gestured to the panel, saying: “I’m not here to fight with you, I’m here to watch them.”
But he continued: “What right do you have to say to older voters and say their vote doesn’t matter? Those who voted to Leave, that your vote doesn’t matter because you’re gonna be dead in less time than us.”
Once again, she calmly responded: “My point wasn’t that your vote doesn’t matter, my point was we didn’t vote for a hard or soft Brexit or not to leave, we didn’t know what we were voting for to Leave. There was no definition.”
The exchange ended with him shouting: “I did! Leave or Remain, I voted Leave.”