The One Show: Joanna Lumley discusses her 1973 Corrie role
The beloved actress is best known for her role as Patsy Stone in the two-time BAFTA-winning BBC show Absolutely Fabulous. She returns to TV screens tonight in the ITV documentary Joanna Lumley’s Home Sweet Home: Travels In My Own Land. Lumley, 74, made her views about Britain’s decision to leave the European Union (EU) clear in a rare rant about Brexiteers.
Lumley argued Remainers were wrong to brand Brexiteers “racist” and “cruel” for voting to leave the EU.
She spoke out amid a rise in racist attacks in the wake of Britain’s decision to leave the EU.
The ‘AbFab’ star felt the nation needed to “remember that most people” in the UK had “good hearts and a sense of justice and generosity”.
Lumley hoped her words would wake Remainers up to the fact that Brexiteers were not evil and attacks were carried out by a minority of people.
She told the Radio Times in 2017: “What is highlighted are the b******s who say and do cruel and wicked things.
Joanna Lumley supported Brexiteers in a rant where she claimed they were not ‘cruel’ (Image: GETTY)
Joanna Lumley starred as Patsy Stone in Absolutely Fabulous alongside Jennifer Saunders (Image: GETTY)
“But we must remember the majority aren’t those people.”
While the actress spoke out in defence of Brexiteers, she did not declare which way she voted in the 2016 referendum.
However, Lumley previously stated that she could “understand a great deal about the Brexiteers’ problems”.
At a 2016 Huffington Post conference, Lumley said: “You can understand people saying, ‘Let’s get out of this. Let’s make our own decisions.’”
Lumley spoke out several times after defending Brexiteers, including last year during a review of the year.
JUST IN: Bill Bailey’s Brexit take exposed as Strictly race hots up
Joanna Lumley started her career as a model before she went into acting (Image: GETTY)
She felt that the nation’s second national lockdown was worsened by the “tensions” surrounding Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s negotiations for a Brexit deal.
In December, Lumley told BBC Breakfast: “We looked on for a little bit of freedom and then when freedom came along we grabbed it.
“Now this last lockdown has been made extra tense by this feeling of Brexit and the sense of no normality.”
Previously, Lumley also claimed women would have been better placed to negotiate a Brexit deal – a statement she admitted was “controversial”.
She told the Mirror Online: “I think that women are able to cope with lots of different things at the same time.
DON’T MISS
David Jason’s Brexit confession exposed: ‘It’s a nice little earner’ [BOOK]
Michael Caine’s solution to Brexit debate: ‘I know every problem!’ [ANALYSIS]
Gary Lineker confessed Brexit could be ‘positive for UK football’ [INTERVIEW]
Five moments that led to Brexit (Image: EXPRESS)
“So the single-issue thing might be a man thing, I’m just thinking of Brexit – I’m sorry, I can’t think of anything else.”
Lumley claimed that Brexit turned people’s interest away from other pressing issues, including climate change and the environment.
She argued that women were used to “always having to think of a thousand different things” so could have kept on top of the negotiations.
Lumley said: “I think women go, ‘Brexit, I wonder what is going to happen then’.
“We can do that and at the same time we can wonder what time the children are coming back from school and what we are going to cook for supper and how we are going to do stuff on top of that.”
Lumley felt women’s ability to multitask “better than men” meant that they should take the lead in environmental issues.
Joanna Lumley is best know for her role in the hit comedy Absolutely Fabulous (Image: GETTY)
She said: “We can do a lot of those things, so maybe this is something that women have to wake up to.”
Lumley also voiced concern over the Irish Backstop, which was rejected in favour of a customs border by the Government.
In 2017, she told the Irish Examiner that the border “should not return” and “something else” should be put in its place.
Lumley criticised the EU for trying to force the UK to adopt the land border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
She said: “The European Union was set up by men and people who have made the rules, it can be picked apart by people who make the rules.”
Baftas 2019: Joanna Lumley makes Ku Klux Klan joke
Lumley stressed that the EU “does not exist” and nor do borders because people “have invented them”.
She added: “We have named these people this name and those people that name, got a piece of paper to go between, ‘Oh, your government does not like this.’”
In another interview, Judge Rinder quizzed Lumley about Brexit on his Channel 4 show, The Rob Rinder Verdict – where she claimed that the process was “exhausting”.
In 2019, she said: “It’s easy just to turn all of those political pages over until something happens.
“You can sit there worrying yourself to death, it’s like a dog chasing a gnat or something – we just go round and round and round.”
The Brexit timeline explained (Image: EXPRESS)
Lumley argued that the public needed to “live each day” until the effects of Brexit were understood.
Her co-star, the comedian Tez Ilyas, compared the negotiations to a “rollercoaster, like Oblivion at Alton Towers”.
He said: “I’m not going to lie to you, I love this, this is my Love Island – you know, Parliament is the best TV channel.
“You go off the edge, you hope there’s enough track to get you to the end. I’m enjoying the drop at the moment, it’s exhilarating.”
Lumley was unimpressed by the metaphor as she claimed to be “afraid of all those” rides and admitted that she couldn’t “even watch them”.
Joanna Lumley’s Home Sweet Home: Travels In My Own Land airs tonight on ITV from 8pm.