Jacob Rees-Mogg has stunned UK people with his response to a question about the regional impact of Brexit.
The leader of the House of Commons said Britain now has “happy fish” and should have a Brexit prayer and a Brexit song in the name of being a “free country once again”.
The Tory also insisted the NHS already “had” the £350 million a week mentioned on the side of a bus, money which the Leave campaign claimed the UK was giving to the EU and would be reinvested in the UK’s state healthcare system post-Brexit.
Speaking in the Parliament, Labour MP Fleur Anderson said: “We’re only days away from the two year anniversary of the EU Withdrawal Bill. In that time, there were huge promises made, £350 million a week back to the NHS, huge trading opportunities around the world, a decrease in our cost of living. But was it all worth it?
“Could I ask for time, in government time, to debate the impact of Brexit? Could there be a report from the government which would give the impact region by region of Brexit and what that’s meant for us all?
“For good or ill, the country needs to know.”
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Rees-Mogg demands Brexit song and prayer for ‘free’ UK
But Rees-Mogg answered: “We can start prayers every morning I think, and this I may propose as a formal resolution of the House, with a celebration of Brexit, we should have the Brexit prayer and perhaps even the Brexit song, beginning ‘Gloria in excelsis Deo’, because it has been a triumph for this nation in reasserting its freedom.
“The NHS already had the £350 million on the side of the bus. That was delivered by my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead in 2018, with an extra £34 billion uplift for the NHS by 2023/24. Just think of the vaccines that we have and the success of the vaccine roll-out programme.
“I believe that I mentioned early in the year, the happy fish that we have. So there is general celebrating and rejoicing that we are now a free country once again.”
Happy fish
But this is not the first time the Brexiteer shows he cares about the happiness of fish.
At the beginning of this year, he claimed that fish captured after Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal came into effect are “happier” because they are “British”.
Responding to concerns from the SNP, Rees-Mogg told MPs: “What is happening is that the government is tackling this issue, dealing with it as quickly as possible, and the key thing is we’ve got our fish back.
“They’re now British fish and they’re better and happier fish for it.”
Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle intervened and noted: “Obviously there’s no overwhelming evidence for that.”
Related: Anger over France ‘grumpy’ in October comment from Rees-Mogg
