BBC's Graham Norton struggles to explain the whole Brexit mess to Stephen Colbert and America

Stephen Colbert interviews Graham Norton

(Image credit: Screenshot/YouTube/The Late Show)

published 6 September 2019

Stephen Colbert introduced Graham Norton, host of the BBC's Graham Norton Show, on Thursday's Late Show as a man who "does what I do but with a charming accent." After exchanging pleasantries and pouring drinks, Colbert got down to brass tacks. "You live in the U.K.," he said to Norton, who is Irish but resides in London. "Can you explain what the hell is going on over there? Because we've all be watching, like, questions to the prime minister, we've all be watching Parliament for the last few days. It's absolute chaos."

"It's nuts, isn't it?" Norton agreed. He didn't exactly explain how Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Parliament are going to negotiate Britain's exit from the European Union, but he offered a theory for the "absolute bedlam" engulfing his home country: "I think, in a sweet way, it's as if the United Kingdom was embarrassed for America, felt like you're all alone out in the world stage, so we found our own angry Cabbage Patch Kid and made him the leader. It's incredible." He described the recent G-7 summit as "a play date" for Johnson and President Trump.

"Boris Johnson looks like such a cheap knockoff of Donald Trump that he looks like someone in Times Square pretending to be Donald Trump that you have your photo with," Colbert observed, and Norton agreed. Colbert tried again to get some answers, asking how Johnson is still prime minister if he lost his parliamentary majority. "What he cleverly did was he said 'If anyone votes against me in my party, I will fire you,'" Norton half-explained. "So they did vote against him, so he fired them, but as he fires them, his majority gets less and less and less. So it's like he's drilling holes in his own ship, out of spite." They gave up and turned to difficult guests. Norton had a doozy. Watch below. Peter Weber

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.