Has Jacob Rees-Mogg really been banned from 'woke' theatres?

Jacob Rees-Mogg, who has been largely twiddling his thumbs after his little-watched reality show Meet The Rees-Moggs was cancelled and his GB News presenting hours were slashed in half, has now taken to the open road.

He is on tour with his live show, Mogg Unbuttoned – “a series of live events that will take me from the green benches of Westminster to theatres across the UK” (although it should be pointed out that it wasn’t his live show which took him from the green benches of Westminster but the voters of North East Somerset who ejected him at the last general election).

But while Moggy has secured a number of intimate venues, he has this week been moaning to the Daily Mail that some of the UK’s larger theatres have rejected because – sigh – they are “woke”.

“Two or three theatres didn’t want to have a Conservative politician,” the former cabinet minister whinged to the Mail’s Richard Eden. “Some of them are [Labour] council-owned, so they didn’t want to upset local Labour councils.”

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He declined to name any of these censorious theatres, saying that “’The promoters [for Mogg Unbuttoned] have relations with these studios [and] theatres and I don’t want to upset their relationship. I would definitely name and shame them, but I have a duty to the promoters.”

Eden, meanwhile, quoted an anonymous and definitely real ‘theatrical mole’ as saying: “Some felt that, as they were in Labour areas, they couldn’t platform him.”

Possibly. Or, more likely, they knew they were unlikely to sell out, as the rest of the tour has targeted some of England’s more, ahem, intimate venues.

Rees-Mogg did manage to sell out the opening night of his tour at Hereford’s Courtyard Studio (capacity: 120), but tickets are still happily available for Worcester’s Huntingdon Hall. There, the capacity is 330 although, happily, “approximately 80 seats can be removed for dancing”.

Then it’s on to Shrewsbury’s Walker Theatre (capacity 250) and, ambitiously, Lincoln’s New Theatre Royal, which can seat 475. Its Victorian building will no doubt appeal to Rees-Mogg, and if he hangs around afterwards, it plays host just over a week later to foul-mouthed comedian Roy ‘Chubby’ Brown, whose on-stage attire is only slightly less ludicrous than Rees-Mogg’s.

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Then it’s the end of the tour show at Winchester’s Theatre Royal (capacity 400), whose website promises “a political evening unlike any other: entertaining, enlightening, and just a little bit Moggical. Tickets are limited. The debate, however, is unlimited!” Tickets are still available, starting at a whopping £37.

Meanwhile, Rees-Mogg has been demonstrating his remarkable ignorance of EU affairs, reposting a comment on X by the pseudonymous Brexiteer account Gully Foyle.

Foyle, who last year published the excruciatingly bad book 75 Brexit Benefits, wrote: “In case you missed it – the EU Parliament has today voted to increase the already massive €1.8 Trillion EU budget for 2028-2034 by a further 10%, taking it to over TWO TRILLION EUROS. The UK as a member would’ve been responsible for 12% of that budget, which is 240 BILLION EUROS.” Rees-Mogg wrote in response: “Where would we find an extra £35 billion a year? Thank heaven we no longer belong to the EU.”

Except, as many users posted, the EU’s budget in 2025 was €199 billion, or £172 billion, a fraction of the quoted €2 trillion, and a 10% increase in UK net contributions would have taken us up to £10-11 billion a year – or an extra billion on top of what we were paying.

That’s considerably less than the estimated £100 billion we currently lose in GDP thanks to the failure of Rees-Mogg’s pet project – and a lot better value than £37 to listen to him spouting this sort of nonsense on stage.