Brexiteer on 'Question Time' believes Britain ruled 'like a light to the world'

Britain. Great Britain. We’ve always been Great haven’t we? We’re the best: Rule Britannia and all that.

Well, it really does depend who you ask doesn’t it? Y’know: imperialism; colonialism; casually splitting India in two over lunch contributing to decades of conflict; famines in India; the general plundering of natural resources to benefit us. It’s fair to say there are a whole giant raft of people out there who don’t necessarily love what the British Empire did to them.

But for one Question Time member, there can be no doubt. We are the best.

Launching a defence of Brexit, a lady from Torquay, said that “for thousands of years, Britain has ruled in a wonderful way, we’ve been a light unto the world” – a comment which led to head-shaking and laughter, before laying into panellist Owen Jones “whingeing all the time”.

Smith, for his part, argued passionately against the idea that the public should even have been given a referendum on the “absolutely complicated, multi-faceted, incredibly important decision, that we ended up with a choice that was binary, where I think that a lot of people were lied to and where unfortunately people were let down by the nature of the debate, let down by the politicians, let down by all of us.”