Brendan O’Carroll fears Brexit could be bad news for Mrs Brown

BRENDAN O’Carroll fears Brexit could be bad news for Mrs Brown — and admitted he’s going “crazy” with worry.

The star today calls for a second referendum in the UK and insists he has little sympathy for British PM Theresa May — who he says will commit “political suicide” if she goes ahead with a no-deal Brexit.

The 63-year-old’s Mrs Brown organisation could take a huge hit if Britain leaves the EU without a deal on March 29.

It’s a worry for him as Mrs Brown’s Boys D’Musical opens in Glasgow in March before touring the UK and he operates a huge warehouse in Britain sending out merchandise to fans who watch his TV show on the BBC.

And Brendan — whose Mrs Brown Christmas special was watched by millions yesterday — told the Irish Sun: “I’ve no idea how Brexit is going to affect us.

“It’s a quagmire because although our warehouse only sends out stuff within the UK, the merchandise comes from all sorts of places.

“For instance our T-shirt supplier gets his shirts from China. How will he bring those in and juggle the tariffs after Brexit? Because what affects our suppliers affects us.

“My only consolation is that we also have a Mrs Brown warehouse in Ireland which supplies Canada, America, Australia and South Africa. Our UK warehouse only supplies the fans in Britain.”

Concerned Brendan said the chaos facing his UK Mrs Brown operation is the same for countless other businesses across the water threatened by Brexit.

He said: “We’re all in the same boat. How can you prepare for something if we don’t know what’s going to happen. It’s driving everyone crazy. Even at this late stage, we don’t know how Brexit is going to affect us.”

And Brendan has little time for besieged Theresa May as she battles to get her Brexit deal through UK Parliament — with huge numbers of her own party ready to vote it down. He explained: “It’s very hard to have sympathy for Theresa because she took on the role herself, she wanted to be leader of the Conservative Party.

“Any normal human being would have looked at the situation and said, ‘This is a poisoned chalice, who’d want this?’ It’s like being Donald Trump’s head of staff.

“As regards the situation Theresa is in now, if she can’t get her own party to unite around her, how the hell is she going to get the rest of the country to support her?

“She might as well be refereeing an England vs Scotland match. You are never going to get the decisions right.”

With the UK in chaos, Brendan sees nothing wrong with voters being offered a second referendum which would give them the chance to reverse Brexit. Asked if there should be one, he boomed: “Why the f*** not?

“Why are the politicians so afraid to look at this? Who says having a second referendum is not respecting the decision of the electorate? People are entitled to change their minds.

“They do it all the time in normal elections. We elect political parties, they don’t fulfil their promises and we vote them out. Simple.

“I really don’t think that the public or the political parties who voted for Brexit really understood what was going to happen. The UK spent 45 years in Europe knocking it into shape, yet now they have decided to leave, it makes no sense.”

Brendan was speaking after he jetted into Dublin with wife Jenny Gibney for Christmas from his Florida base. And with the holidays being a time to see good friends, they don’t come much dearer than old pal Gay Byrne, who gave him his break on the Late Late Show in 1992 — something he’ll never forget.

He said: “I sent Gay a hamper yesterday just to say thank you for all these years and the wonderful life he has given me.

“I can truly say that it started on the Late Late Show. That really kick-started my career.

“Whenever I thank Gay, he just says he loves opening the door a crack for people, and it’s up to them what they do with that chance. But in my case, it kicked the door off its hinges, so I’m forever grateful to Gay.”

With his own chat show on the BBC, Brendan is well placed to tell if our RTE stars are worth their money — after new figures showed Late Late host Ryan Tubridy is the top paid star, trousering €495,000 a year.

He said: “If you want stars you have to pay. I’m not sure if what they (the RTE top ten) are getting is the market rate. But if you look at Chris Evans, he was getting a million a year just for doing radio. Ryan Tubridy does the Late Late and a big radio show five days a week.

“In Ireland we have two million people paying the licence fee, In the UK they have 50million. Yet we want the same standard of TV as Britain without paying any extra. It just doesn’t work like that, and I don’t think we’d get people to do the job in Ireland for any less.”