Jeremy Corbyn would “relish” the chance of a televised debate against Theresa May on Brexit, his spokesman has said.
It came after the Daily Telegraph reported that May could challenge Corbyn to a head-to-head as part of a plan to sell her troubled Brexit deal to the country.
A Labour spokesman said: “Jeremy would relish a head-to-head debate with Theresa May about her botched Brexit deal and the future of our country.”
On Monday, May will challenge MPs to back her Brexit plan or risk crashing out of the European Union without an agreement.
The Prime Minister will face the Commons after EU leaders endorsed the deal and made it clear it was not up for renegotiation.
May will tell the Commons “with absolute certainty” that “there is not a better deal available”.
The Prime Minister, who will chair a meeting of her Cabinet on Monday morning, will warn rejecting her deal will “open the door to more division and uncertainty, with all the risks that will entail”.
She has already started a campaign of selling her deal directly to the public in the hope their support can win round MPs opposed to the plan before the Commons vote, widely expected in the week beginning December 10.
At a historic summit in Brussels on Sunday, the leaders of the remaining 27 member states took less than 40 minutes to approve the deal.
May will now put it to a vote of MPs before Christmas but faces a battle to get it through the House of Commons in the face of intense opposition on both the Leave and Remain-supporting wings of her party.
In her Commons statement the Prime Minister will say: “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 … It would open the door to more division and more uncertainty, with all the risks that will entail.”
She will say that “the national interest is clear” and “the British people want us to get on with a deal that honours the referendum”
Former foreign secretary Boris Johnson branded the Prime Minister’s deal a “disaster” and a “humiliation” for the UK.
In his regular Daily Telegraph column, he said: “The other EU countries have signed the deal immediately, because they know that they have us exactly where they want us.
“We are a satellite state – a memento mori fixed on the walls of Brussels as a ghastly gaping warning to all who try to escape.”
More than 80 Tories have rejected the deal, with opposition parties – and Mrs May’s allies in the DUP – also set to oppose it.