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British Prime Minister Theresa May and Opposition Leader Jeremy Corbyn have both been grilled in front of a live TV audience ahead of next week's general election.
Key points:
- PM Theresa May says "no [Brexit] deal is better than a bad deal" in televised debate
- Ms May is expected to win the June 8 election, but her lead in opinion polls has dropped in the past week
- Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn guarantees a Brexit deal will be struck if elected
Britons will go to the polls in a vote that will decide whether Ms May, from the centre-right Conservatives, or Corbyn of the leftist Labour Party, gets to sit down with Brussels and hammer out a Brexit deal that will define the country's trade and diplomatic ties with the European Union.
Ms May told the Battle for Number 10 debate that she would walk away from Brexit negotiations without a deal if she had to, but Mr Corbyn said he would make sure an agreement was reached if he won power.
Their differing stances could set the tone for what both Britain and the EU expect will be two years of difficult talks on everything from how much cash should be paid upon exit, to border arrangements for migrants, goods and services.
Ms May is expected to win comfortably on June 8, but her party's lead in opinion polls has narrowed sharply in the last week, calling into question her decision to call the unscheduled election seeking a strong endorsement of her Brexit strategy.
The latest polling showed her lead cut to 6 percentage points, from 9 points a week ago, and 18 points two weeks ago, as voters reacted badly to the Conservatives' manifesto.
The two party leaders' differences on how to handle talks with Brussels came to the fore during the main televised event of the campaign, in which they separately fielded questions from the public and were then interviewed by Jeremy Paxman.
"We will be there to negotiate the right deal, but what I have said is that no deal is better than a bad deal. We have to be prepared to walk out," Ms May said.
The PM had previously expressed her willingness to walk away from talks, warning that Brussels could seek to punish Britain to deter other EU states from leaving by taking a hard-line stance.
But Mr Corbyn set out a different approach.
When asked whether he would contemplate a scenario where Britain failed to strike an arrangement with the rest of the bloc, Jeremy Corbyn said: "There's going to be a deal."
"We will make sure there is a deal."
With polls showing Ms May is more trusted to deliver Brexit than Mr Corbyn, she will look to keep the election debate tightly focused on the upcoming talks, seeking to recover from a backlash to her plans to make elderly voters pay more towards the cost of their old age care.
At a campaign event tomorrow, she is expected to warn that the EU has taken an aggressive stance to the negotiations, and that she needs the strong endorsement of the British public to fight for a good exit deal.
Ms May was heckled and laughed at by some members of the audience at Monday's TV appearance when discussing her education policy, and when Paxman asked whether the EU would see her as a "blowhard who collapses at the first sign of gunfire" after she softened her plans on old age care.
"What the people in Brussels look at is the record I had negotiating with them…and delivering for this country on a number of issues on justice and home affairs which people said we were never going to get," Ms May replied, citing her record as interior minister between 2010 and 2016.
Wires/ABC
Topics: world-politics, government-and-politics, elections, united-kingdom, european-union