CONTROVERSIAL Brexiteer MP Jacob Rees-Mogg has declared his support for Taunton culture, given a strong response to EU rejecting the Chequers plan, and nailed his colours to the mast on T20 cricket at an event in Taunton.

The leading Eurosceptic starred at an ArtsTaunton fundraiser which was giving backing to a new youth festival set to be launched in the town in 2019.

In the introduction, Kit Chapman, founder of ArtsTaunton, declared Rees-Mogg, the MP for North East Somerset, as the nation’s current ‘Mr Marmite’.

The talk came just hours after the EU rejected Theresa May’s plan for Brexit, which gave the already vocal MP plenty to talk about in front of the packed room at the Castle Hotel on Friday (September 21).

In attendance was Taunton Deane MP Rebecca Pow, who is an ArtsTaunton ambassador and chaired the question and answer session.

Also there was Mrs Pow’s husband Charles Clarke who owns Greenslade Taylor Hunt, commercial sponsors of ArtsTaunton.

When the event focused on the main purpose of the evening, the Youth Festival, Mr Rees-Mogg was asked his opinion on the importance of arts and culture.

He said: “This reminds me of an honourable member of parliament who visited a village in their rural constituency and answered a question about Arts and Culture, but the person had said agriculture, so as you might think the answer was wrong.

“I think both are enormously important. We are here in the county town, and what all towns and cities need are something that makes it special.

“It is arts and culture that does that, that makes people think ‘I am going to Taunton, rather than Bristol. That is nothing compared to the county town of God’s own county’.

“It also gives young people a way to express themselves.

“It is individuals as a community coming together that makes things happen. For some that is by giving money, and for some that is through supporting the arts and showing this is the place to be.”

The focus of Mr Rees-Mogg’s opening talk was his thoughts on Brexit, and he opened by discussing the European Union’s decision to reject Theresa May’s proposal which had come earlier that day.

He said: “It has been a really important and interesting week in Brexit.

“We have just seen the reaction of Salzburg and it just shows that this organisation we are parting from is one that is very difficult to do business with – that isn’t interested in being reasonable or rational.

“They had given the impression that Theresa May was going to be well received and then they said no.

“One leader said why don’t we go away and try again, and the Prime Minister of Malta suggested that maybe we should take another vote. Are we really going to be told what to do by the Prime Minister of Malta?

“We now see one of the reasons we wanted to leave. It is not a body we want to do business with. It is a bully. It is not a democratic body.

“It is like the mafia, if you leave you will swim with the fishes. You don’t want to be part of that in the first place.”

Mr Rees-Mogg also outlined some of his ideas for getting a Brexit deal over the line after one EU negotiator said the deal was 87 per cent agreed.

These included plans for the Ireland border, on which the Rees-Mogg-chaired European Research Group (ERG) published a paper on last week.

He said: “Remaining in the European Customs Union would be just like having a hard border down the Irish sea, something which the Prime Minister also does not want.

“If it was just the great kingdom of Somerset then I would be pleased as punch, we would certainly show those Cornish nationalists.

“But outside of that, I see it as the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, with Wales and Scotland too, and I am not up for chopping a bit off.”

Part of Mr Rees-Mogg and the ERG’s proposals consist of checking points being in place, but around 12 miles from the border, using customs checking points in Rotterdam as a reference distance.

This would allow for free movement of individuals between Ireland and Northern Ireland, but for it to work, Mr Rees-Mogg has also asked for an exemption from checks for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

If the movement of SMEs became a sticking point for the EU, the eurosceptic assured the Taunton crowd that SMEs would tolerate customs checks if it meant getting a deal agreed.

The question and answer session finished with a return to non-Brexit discussions as one member of the public called for the guest speaker’s thoughts on T20 cricket.

He said: “I was watching the match at Edgbaston and it is exciting. I also took my two eldest sons to see Somerset v Middlesex and they absolutely loved it.

“With proper cricket, I like nothing more than going and spending a whole day at Taunton, and that is fine if you are 50, but for an eight-year-old the patience required is quite difficult.

“I have to say T20 cricket is fun. I have become liberal in my old age.”