By proposing a Brexit TV debate with Corbyn, Theresa May has reached for her last resort: torture

Should it happen, it will likely be akin to something straight from election day in a banana republic

Three times at the despatch box of the House of Commons, twice on the steps of No 10, twice on radio phone-ins, once in a lengthy TV interview and then once again in Brussels on Sunday, Theresa May has done her level best to make one point about her Brexit deal absolutely clear.

And it is this: this is it. This is the best deal and the only deal on offer. There is no more renegotiating to be done. No improved terms to be found. Take it, or leave it and face the consequences.

So we must conclude therefore that the leaked plan to put this solitary option to the nation via the means of a televised debate with Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn can only be to torture the public into some kind of submission.

I have closed my eyes and attempted to foresee how this so-called debate will unfold for some time now, and all I can see is dystopian horror. Traditionally, in televised debates, two candidates vying for electoral victory argue with one another and the public may take a view on who they wish to vote for.

I say “traditionally”, of course I mean “traditionally” in the US, France and elsewhere. Traditionally, in this country, the incumbent prime minister wimps out, and is replaced by a bizarre cast of Welsh and Scottish nationalists, environmentalists and the leader of an even more obscure party called the Liberal Democrats, which no longer exists. Most of these people are not even standing for election and are known to most of the public only as the people who appear in the TV debates whenever there is an election.

But even this tradition will appear profoundly normal when compared with the extraordinary multiple WTF clustergasm for which Theresa May appears to expect the Strictly Dance Off to make way for.

Instead, it will be Theresa May, bravely putting forward a deal that has thus far proved about as popular in Westminster as the expenses scandal, while Jeremy Corbyn puts forward an alternative that is both legally impossible and, even if it were not, entirely unavailable anyway

We would appear to have arrived fully at the point of election day in some banana republic, going through the democratic motions except with just the one option on the ballot paper. Brexit in name only, ushered in by debate in name only. Just think of the “spin room” after, reluctant Theresa May loyalists, sweeping in to announce, “It doesn’t matter who won tonight’s debate. The prime minister is very clear. This is the only deal available.”

And this will be followed, we hear, with some kind of nationwide tour, in which Theresa May will sell the benefits of her deal to the four nations of the United Kingdom, two of whom voted to remain, and one of whom is represented in Westminster by the Democratic Unionist Party, who appears happy to give the government back the £1bn it secured from them, just to make sure the deal doesn’t happen.

Theresa May’s strategy appears to be to go over the head of the House of Commons and sell her deal direct to the public, which, she hopes will force MPs to fall into line and vote it through.

It is boring but nevertheless worthwhile to have to repeat, that around eighteen months ago, with the polls suggesting Theresa May was the most popular prime minister in British history, she decided to call an election. She then went around the country selling a product widely believed to be popular, namely herself, and it ended with the mess we are currently in.

Why she imagines she will fare better this time, selling a product unpopular by definition with the huge percentage of the population that voted to remain in the EU, and seemingly even less popular with those who voted to leave, is a riddle only her and her advisors must have solved.

Still, if the public take against her Brexit deal in this forthcoming campaign, at least she knows that, unlike in 2017, there is no meaningful vote at the end of it.

But MPs do have a meaningful vote, on 12 December. As things stand, she has little chance of winning, but she does have the support of large numbers of MPs. If this campaign goes as badly as I for one predict, she will be making life even harder for herself.

A gamble, no doubt, but perhaps she has decided she has nothing to lose.