An audience member on BBC Question Time has offered a withering assessment of the much-vaunted post-Brexit freedoms.
It came after the government this week confirmed plans to scrap the cap on bankers’ bonuses – a policy introduced in 2014 that was inherited from Britain’s time in the European Union.
Rishi Sunak said getting rid of the cap would encourage banks to “invest here and pay taxes here”.
Liz Truss’s chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng announced plans to axe the cap in last year’s disastrous mini-budget, and the current leadership is now pushing through with it.
On the BBC’s political show, which this week came from Bradford, an audience member said: “The scrapping of the cap on bankers’ bonuses was described as one of the freedoms of Brexit.
“Am I to believe, as someone who lives in a relatively impoverished part of Britain, that these benefits of Brexit involve the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer?”
The attack followed a question from a teacher in the audience, who had suggested scrapping the cap was “an insult to working people struggling in a cost of living crisis”.
Defending the policy on the show, Tory minister Lee Rowley said there are a “broader set” of policies the government had introduced to alleviate the cost-of-living crisis.