Stay up to date with notifications from The Independent

Notifications can be managed in browser preferences.

Corbyn 'would relish' Brexit TV debate with Theresa May as PM tries to sell her exit deal

Prime minister planning campaign to take case for her deal to the nation

Monday 26 November 2018 00:00 GMT

✕

Jean-Claude Juncker says MPs who vote down Theresa May's Brexit deal will be 'disappointed in the first second'

Jeremy Corbyn has said he “would relish” a head-to-head TV debate with Theresa May as the prime minister embarks on a campaign to sell her Brexit deal to the nation.

Ms May will attempt to drum up support for her withdrawal agreement – approved by EU leaders on Sunday – while hoping to overcome huge opposition to it in the Commons ahead of MPs’ “meaningful vote” in December.

She will warn MPs that rejecting her plan will “open the door to more division and uncertainty, with all the risks that will entail”. Reports suggested she would seek a TV debate with Mr Corbyn as part of that campaign.

Responding to those reports, a Labour spokesperson said on Sunday night: “Jeremy would relish a head to head debate with Theresa May about her botched Brexit deal and the future of our country.”

Mr Corbyn has said the deal represents ”the result of a miserable failure of negotiation that leaves us with the worst of all worlds”.

Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish first minister, had already thrown her hat in the ring. She tweeted on Saturday: “I’d be up for a full leaders debate on the ‘deal’.”

Ms May is due to face the Commons again now that her plan has won EU approval, and is expected to tell parliamentary colleagues: “Our duty as a parliament over these coming weeks is to examine this deal in detail, to debate it respectfully, to listen to our constituents and decide what is in our national interest.

“There is a choice which MPs will have to make. We can back this deal, deliver on the vote of the referendum and move on to building a brighter future of opportunity and prosperity for all our people.

“Or this house can choose to reject this deal and go back to square one.”

Britain before Brexit: West Midlands

Show all 14

1/14Britain before Brexit: West Midlands

Britain before Brexit: West Midlands

Stoke

A toy tiger, a long way from its natural habitat, no longer loved, no longer cuddled, caught in wires, lost within a maze of alleyways and red-brick terraces

Richard Morgan/The Independent

Britain before Brexit: West Midlands

Coventry

The Multi-Faith Peace Walk visits a gurdwara. The white man in the front row wears a cross, displaying allegiance to Christianity. His hat is a public sign of loyalty to Coventry City FC. There is no disrespect. On the contrary, this is an event that encourages multi-faith interaction, and his sincerity and concentration, I think, show that it’s working

Richard Morgan/The Independent

Britain before Brexit: West Midlands

Birmingham

Two outlines of man in British society, 100 years apart. Both carry a heavy load, both with a purpose, going somewhere, under orders, no doubt. But they’re split by the years between them, looking at life from different ends of the century, with different outlooks, facing different futures and fates

Richard Morgan/The Independent

Britain before Brexit: West Midlands

Hanley

There are small shops like this all over modern Britain. They are adorned with flags of the countries whose products you may find inside. They have names like “International”, “European”, “Baltic”, “Balkan”, “Eastern”, etc. “Unity Store” is exceptional, however, because it makes a political statement about the desirable relationship between the nationalities and their relationship to Britain

Richard Morgan/The Independent

Britain before Brexit: West Midlands

Wolverhampton

The blind leading the blind, or friends leaving the pub together, walking and talking together, going to the bus stop and heading home, not in need of a sighted leader

Richard Morgan/The Independent

Britain before Brexit: West Midlands

Worcester

A man sleeps in a pub, preserving body heat, his crossword incomplete and Guinness unfinished. There’s absence beside; a light emptiness that exaggerates the weight of his slumber

Richard Morgan/The Independent

Britain before Brexit: West Midlands

Coventry

Warriors in the heat of a Pokémon battle, war-weary, yet glued to the action, fighting on. Reality is up for grabs in this scene, fragmented across three planes: the street, the battle, and the airbrushed projections of femininity

Richard Morgan/The Independent

Britain before Brexit: West Midlands

Worcester

A crowd looks on as a young man contemplates suicide, standing atop a building in the town centre. A fireman eventually persuades him not to jump, and he is carried down to earth by the mechanical arm of a fire engine

Richard Morgan/The Independent

Britain before Brexit: West Midlands

Birmingham

Jehovah’s Witnesses try to convert people outside Moor Street station. They compete for attention with a sign promising financial gain. There’s a choice here, between the world of faith and the heady skylines of Birmingham and London, where what’s in your pocket matters most

Richard Morgan/The Independent

Britain before Brexit: West Midlands

Worcester

A church on the high street undergoes construction. Scaffolding is hidden by boards displaying messages about God and Christianity. Coupled with a secular, national symbol, the text takes on another meaning, a commentary on the nation itself as a broad church, as shelter, as a place of worship

Richard Morgan/The Independent

Britain before Brexit: West Midlands

Coventry

Skeletons behind curtains in a spiritualist church. They are there for Halloween, but it looks like a joke about the role of the dead in the church, who are kept close, communicating with terrestrial beings through the energy that binds all things

Richard Morgan/The Independent

Britain before Brexit: West Midlands

Warwick

Red poppies made from plastic bottle bottoms. Recycling in the service of memorialisation. The act of remembrance blurs with the ethics of 21st century environmentalism

Richard Morgan/The Independent

Britain before Brexit: West Midlands

Coventry

A tent pitched in the middle of the city, next to the pavement, cramped in a corner. The inhabitants’ towel hangs out to dry, below a cruel, unintentional, chance commentary on the transitory, temporary, and thoroughly unhomely settlement. A boy moves in the light, playing or hiding or turning away

Richard Morgan/The Independent

Britain before Brexit: West Midlands

Warwick

An early morning view of Warwick castle, still black, just reappearing, yet the flag shines as if it had done so the whole night through, as if it had always been this way; a beacon of light in a world of darkness

Richard Morgan/The Independent

More than 80 Tories have rejected the deal, with opposition parties – and Mrs May’s allies in the DUP – also set to oppose it.

Earlier on Sunday foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt insisted Ms May could carry on as prime minister if she was defeated. Pressed on whether the government could collapse in that scenario, he added: “It’s not possible to rule out anything.”

Additional reporting by PA

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies