‘Broken promises’ challenger is chairman of Ukip’s youth wing at York University
Abigail Eatock told Mrs May that she had U-turned on her decision not to call an election and on her social care plans.
The audience member who challenged Theresa May over her record of “broken promises and backtracking” during the BBC Question Time leaders special is chairman of Ukip’s youth wing at York University.
In a fiery opening exchange, Abigail Eatock told Mrs May that she had U-turned on her decision not to call an election and on her social care plans.
And she accused her of ducking debates with Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who was appearing separately on the programme after the PM refused to go head to head with her rival.
Soon after the back-and-forth, a Ukip source confirmed that Ms Eatock is the chairman of Young Independence, the party’s youth wing, at York University, where the BBC One event was being held.
According to the Young Independence website, the York group is one of five university societies around the country.
The youth wing is made up of all party members aged 30 and under.
Opening the 90-minute programme, Ms Eatock challenged Mrs May directly: “Why should the public trust anything you say or any of your policies when you have a known track record of broken promises and backtracking during your time as Home Secretary and now Prime Minister?”
Mrs May responded by giving a defence of her record as Home Secretary of excluding hate preachers and reining in stop and search.
“I said I would be tough on crime and I said I would ensure our police and our security services had the powers they need to be able to do their job, and I gave them those in the legislation that I put through,” she said.
“And I made sure that we kept the records of criminals and terrorists on the DNA database, whereas Diane Abbott wants to wipe them clean. I don’t think that’s a good idea because they help us catch criminals.”
Ms Eatock won loud applause as she retorted: “You said you wouldn’t call an election and you did. You are refusing to take part in debates, refusing to answer people’s questions, refusing to talk to Jeremy Corbyn.
“And you’ve backtracked on your social care policy. Your entire manifesto has holes in it, and everyone else can see that.”
But Mrs May said: “I’m not refusing to take part in debates, because I’m here answering questions from you. That’s what I think is important in an election campaign – not politicians arguing amongst each other, but actually listening and taking questions from voters.”
Ms Eatock said she was not convinced by Mrs May and would spoil her ballot paper.
Asked if she was satisfied by the Prime Minister’s response to her question, she told the BBC: “I felt it was a lot of politics spiel, it wasn’t really answered it was more ‘this is what I have rehearsed and this is what I’m going to say’.
“So not really.”
Explaining why she would not vote for either Mrs May or Jeremy Corbyn she said: “I still don’t trust the words that come out of their mouths and I’m a Ukipper and I would never vote for either of those two parties because there is no confidence in them.”
