Jeremy Corbyn has accepted Theresa May’s challenge to debate Brexit with her on live TV, saying he would ‘relish’ it – and a date has been provisionally set for Sunday 9 December.
SKWAWKBOX comment:
Given her complete aversion to a head-to-head debate during the 2017 general election campaign and the stark contrast between Corbyn’s natural ease and the awkwardness of the ‘MayBot’, May will no doubt be looking desperately for some – any – excuse to duck out of the debate.
Amber Rudd may well be expecting a call – just as she had to stand in for the cowardly PM last year in spite of the death of her father just two days earlier.
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Pointless and unnecessary
Debating what about Brexit? Whether to accept her deal or not? Is there really any point? When is the commons vote taking place? She’ll just start calling him an antisemite… Like that other Tory on Question Time
You beat me to it, I was going to make the same comment
Also, don’t see the point in a big live tv debate on this between the two of them if there’s not a general election on (or a “people’s vote”). Who is the debate aiming to persuade? And persuade to do what? The public? The public are not voting on anything regarding Brexit (or general election) (as far as we know/as of yet). MPs? I don’t think this debate will change how they plan to vote on the agreement/ Brexit. Plus we see them “debate” each week at PMQs and know their opinions through tv interviews, reports, and social media.
Whoever the broadcaster is they won’t be constrained by pre-election balance so questions will likely be loaded to give May a win.
She can make claims JC can’t challenge without information unavailable to the opposition – but pointing that out shows her up as a cheat.
Upper echelon civil service types will be falling over each other to swap Corbyn-killers for honours – I’d ask “Which Humphrey got the Sir for that one?”
MMT is hard to grasp and tax/spend economics has the aura of common sense – but Carillion NHS etc. are toxic to her.
Her PMQs confidence depends totally on thorough preparation & coaching – she’s crap at winging it so keep her off script with the unexpected.
When she demands to know Labour Brexit policy answer with “Why even ask? The EU wouldn’t accept anything more from Conservatives. They stopped listening to you last year”
Maybe that’s all bad tactics though – let her win big enough and she might call another snappie… 🙂
We need to respect parliamentary processes. Labour would be foolish to agree to this before it has been debated and voted on in the chamber. If we don’t have the debate and vote in parliament first it will be a meaningless and pointless exercise in ‘debating’ hypotheticals.
They should wait a few days until after the vote when they will actually have something of real substance to debate about the best way forward.
Challenge already made and accepted apparently – not clear on whether the date’s set in stone – but if JC were to suggest the slightest change she’d crow that he was ‘begging for quarter at swordpoint’.
This is a good point :
https://mobile.twitter.com/elwandbob/status/1067196851449929728
“I really don’t see the point of this. Leaving the EU is a Tory mistake, from conception, through incompetent negotiation, ending with nonsense deal. She is trying to contaminate Labour. The Tories OWN Brexit.”
If there isn’t a general election on, then what’s the point?
There is an interesting article in The Express stating that Blair (‘Hard’ Remain), Cable (‘Hard’ Remain), Johnson (Hard Brexit) and Sturgeon (Remain) should also be invited to balance Corbyn (Remain & Reform) and May (not sure what shade her Remain is) platform. I can’t recall if Farage (‘No-Deal Burn-the-Bridges’ Brexit) was mentioned.
This just shows how fragmented opinion is on the matter. The point is people voted Leave for different reasons, and people voted Remain for different reasons. So the deal will never be approved by a simple majority of MPs.
As Kate Hoey said, government should seriously start preparing for No-Deal Brexit. That’s the least responsible thing they can do after failing to negotiate a satisfactory deal.
What a piece of oppression is the internet. I’ve no idea how I logged in to this account, and when It’s over, I’ve no idea how I’ll get back to it. If online media doesn’t make this kind of thing a lot easier for morons like me, they’ll lose an awful lot of readers. This ought to be simple. It’s bloody impossible. All I want to do is recommend a few comments, and make the odd one myself. It’s like getting in to Fort Knox.
Rant over.
Would you like me to print out tomorrow’s internet and pop it through your letterbox every morning?
There’d be a small charge… 🙂
I think JC needs to be cautious here. She has done nothing else for two years. He has really avoided the issue (largely) for two years. She will have all the facts and figures at her finger tips and I think she will come cross very well. Of course he is better and warmer than her but I think he will appear more woolly and vague.
This a practice debate to see if she can have a snap election. The debate is pointless, it would be better to have them both addressing each other’s parties and televise that. If May thinks that the tv debate will put pressure on the electorate to put pressure on their MP’s to vote for May’s deal, it won’t end well for her.
Louise Perry gave us a trailer of the Tory agenda. JC innocent until accusation of …….being a supporter of terrorism & the IRA; appearing on ‘Russia Today’ & being a Communist, being an anti- semite……..as well as undermining national security by reducing our armed forces & leaving us completely unprotected by abolishing Trident. Kenny Everett was right “Let’s bomb Russia!”.
No wonder the ERG and Leave Means Leave are so opposed to a People’s Vote
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/final-say-remain-leave-second-referendum-brexit-no-deal-crossover-day-a8541576.html
The same survey presumably suggests the yoofening of the electorate could make the next General Election – interesting.
There has been a considerable rise in voter registrations recently which I guess must mean something. The majority appear to be in the <45 category who predominately favour remain.
https://www.gov.uk/performance/register-to-vote/registrations-by-age-group#from=2017-12-01T00:00:00Z&to=2018-11-01T00:00:00Z
Have a play around with the chart, you can set the data period to be anything you like.
I think that young people would be very energised to get out and vote in any People's Vote, they've more to loose than anyone else.
You might also find this interesting, some of the results are quite surprising.
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2017/06/13/how-britain-voted-2017-general-election