Former TV host Anna Soubry makes case for second Brexit vote

Today she is a Conservative MP travelling the country to make the case for a second referendum on Britain's decision to leave the European Union.

Has Brexit left Britain as divided today as those studio audiences were about the death of Elvis Presley and nudity on TV back in the 1980s?

"Wow, you remember it? You must have only been a child," she says cheekily.

"I think a lot of the debate about Brexit of a much lower standard than we had on Central Weekend."

Miss Soubry, who held a number of ministerial posts in David Cameron's government, is about to take to the stage at Shrewsbury Town Football Club. She is the headline speaker at an event organised by the campaign group Open Britain, which is calling for another vote.

She insists that the quality of debate on her old television programme was actually quite good.

"There used to be some very good arguments made on Central Weekend," she says. "Sometimes people got emotional because their feelings were running high, but there were some good points made."

Addressing a Brexit protest outside Parliament in June, she described how her 84-year-old mother, and her daughters, had 'wept' on the morning that the result was announced. Only last month she said on Twitter that the British people deserved a 'huge apology' that the referendum was held in the first place. Given that she is so against referenda, why does she want another one?

"This is different to the first referendum, that was about whether we should stay in or whether we should leave the EU," she says.

"There were huge questions about what this would look like. Now we know what Brexit looks like, we believe it should go back to the people."

The Prime Minister's draft withdrawal bill, and subsequent 'political declaration' on Britain's future trading arrangement with the EU has done nothing to dampen her anger. She tells her audience of 450 mainly committed Remain supporters that her opposition to the plan was one of the very few things she agrees with Boris Johnson about.

"She doesn't have a deal, it's not worth the paper it is written on, it is nothing more than warm words," she says.

"They are fine words, but that is all they are. After two-and-a-half years, we have got 26 pages of text which most of us could have rustled up in a couple of hours. It tells us very little, if anything, more about what our future relationship with the EU is going to be than we already knew.

"I can't think of any other scenario where a prime minister will go off and negotiate a deal without first agreeing what the basis of that agreement will be with her own cabinet, let alone Parliament."

She says that the draft withdrawal agreement could leave Britain being indefinitely forced to follow EU legislation, without any vote on the matter, and no way of unilaterally ending the arrangement.

"I never thought I would say these words, but I agree with Boris Johnson when he uses that most terrible of words vassalage," she says.

Miss Soubry says the deal would also leave Britain under the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice – a claim disputed by the Prime Minister ­– although she adds she cannot actually understand what people's objections are to the court.

WATCH: Anna Soubry on Central Weekend

"The European Court of Justice is not doing anything wrong for our country," she says. "It's been extremely good for us."

She says the agreement will diminish Britain's status in the world.

"We are finding our influence has been diminished by the mistake this country has made," she says.

Despite her reservations about the agreement, she says Theresa May has her full confidence as Prime Minister.

"I think it would be hugely irresponsible to change Prime Minister at this time," she says.

WATCH: Anna Soubry presents on Central TV

Miss Soubry says the Maastricht Treaty, which created the present EU institutions in the 1990s, represented an excellent deal for Britain.

"We are not in the Euro, we are not in Schengen, we have got a fabulous deal where we have got all the benefits of integration, without the conditions that many other countries are subject to."

She also accuses Brexit campaigners of stoking up racial tensions, and says there is a need to make a positive case for immigration.

"When you find people with Polish accents or brown or brown or yellow skin feel for the first time that they are being abused, or spat at, or told 'why don't you go home?', that is not the Britain I want to live in.

"As the great Jo Cox said, we have more in common than divides us."