‘The workers will get screwed’: Benjamin Zephaniah tells Question Time all Brexit outcomes bad for working class The poet said: ‘Brexit, Remain or Leave, however you look at it, trust me, the workers get will get screwed’

Poet Benjamin Zephaniah told the BBC’s Question Time show that he believed that the working class would suffer under any Brexit outcome.

Mr Zephaniah told the audience in Penzance on Thursday night that while the levels ordinary people will suffer will vary, ultimately all outcomes are bad for the working class.

The acclaimed poet said his relationship with the late veteran left-wing eurosceptic Tony Benn was instructive in his views, saying: “A few years ago.. I came on this programme just leading up to the vote and I was genuinely a neutral.”

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“The first person that I ever heard talk about the EU very passionately, and he was a leaver, was Tony Benn, and he sat down and he talked to me about it for hours.”

“And I agreed with him, and he always said one of the problems with the EU was that the longer we stayed in, the more difficult it would be to get out.”

“One of the things I thought leading up to the referendum was simply… look it doesn’t matter if we have, Brexit, Remain or Leave, however, you look at it, trust me, the workers get will get screwed.”

“The banks are screwing you, the insurance companies are screwing you, the utility companies are screwing you. It’s just about how much you get screwed.”

Mr Zephaniah was friends with the veteran Labour figure up until his death in March 2014. Throughout much of his career, he remained opposed to Britain’membership of the European Union, framed by his left-wing principles.

He said during a speech in the Commons during a debate on the Maastricht treaty in 1991 that: “My view of the EU has always been not that I am hostile to foreigners but I am in favour of democracy. I think they are building an empire and want us to be part of that empire, and I don’t want that.”

His brand of left-wing Euroscepticism was also espoused by one fellow Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn, the now leader of the Labour Party, although Mr Corbyn backed Remain in the 2016 Referendum.

Mr Zephaniah said the Labour leaders views made debating Brexit with Theresa May questionable. The pair are due to go head to head in a TV debate on Sunday 9 December.

Mr Zephaniah said: “Theresa May will be telling us to Leave while voting Remain, and Jeremy Corbyn, bless his socks, will be asking us to Remain when he wanted to Leave.”

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