Ex-Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg to star in reality TV series after losing his seat – and we’re so tired

Former Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg – not known as an ally of the LGBTQ+ community – is getting his own reality TV show.

The TV channel Discovery revealed on Monday (21 October) that the former business secretary, and minister for Brexit benefits, is to feature in a five-part docu-series about his family life. The show, Meet the Rees-Moggs, will “lift the lid on the man behind the public image,” according to a statement.

“With exclusive access, this fly-on-the-wall documentary series will be a never-before-seen look into his life at home in the 17th-century Somerset house where he lives with his wife and six children.” Most of the youngsters are named after medieval saints.

In the past, Rees-Mogg has joked about having enough offspring to form their own cricket team (of 11).

Streaming exclusively on Discovery+ UK and Ireland on 2 December, it will follow Rees-Mogg through the run-up to the summer’s general election and its aftermath.

Rees-Mogg, whose father edited The Times newspaper between 1967 and 1981, lost his North East Somerset and Hanham seat, where he’d been the MP since 2010, by more than 5,000 votes.

He once responded to a question on LGBTQ+ hate crime by saying “you can’t offend the dead“.

Asked by the BBC what his plans were for the future, Rees-Mogg said he hadn’t “made any,” but still had his media activities, including at GB News. “It’s early days but my interest in politics and devotion to Somerset are unabated,” he added.

As part of promotional material for the series, Rees-Mogg recreated a picture taken of him sprawled across the government benches in the House of Commons in 2019.

For many, including critics of the Tory government, the image represented of his party’s blasé approach to dealing with the issues surrounding Brexit, the cost of living, and, of course, LGBTQ+ rights.

Last year, in a segment on his GB News show, called “pronoun prison,” Rees-Mogg talked about potentially tougher penalties for anti-LGBTQ+ hate crime, and said the anti-trans abuse targeted at murdered trans teenager Brianna Ghey didn’t need to be addressed.

“As a general rule in law, you can’t libel the dead. That’s surely sensible that once someone is dead the libel laws fail to take effect,” he said. “You can’t offend someone who is dead, you can offend the family.”

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