Cambridge University academic Dr Victoria Bateman invites Jacob Rees-Mogg for naked Brexit debate Dr Victoria Bateman said she was comfortable with her body and wanted to highlight how Brexit ‘leaves Britain naked’

An academic has invited Jacob Rees-Mogg to join her for a naked debate on Brexit after she appeared on Radio 4’s Today programme with nothing on.

Dr Victoria Bateman, an economics fellow at Cambridge University, invited the Conservative Brexiteer MP discuss the issue after she was interviewed naked by John Humphrys.

She appeared on the programme with the words “Brexit leaves Britain naked” written across her body and invited Leave supporters to strip off and discuss Britain’s withdrawal from the EU.

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‘Brexit is the emperor’s new clothes’

“I invite Jacob Rees-Mogg to do a naked debate with me and we will get to the roots of this issue,” she told Humphrys.

“Britain faces many, many problems right now from housing to the NHS, and the European Union is not the cause of those problems.”

Dr Bateman said she decided to talk about Brexit with nothing on to demonstrate that leaving the EU is the “emperor’s new clothes”.

She said: “I have myself written thousands of words looking at why Brexit is bad for Britain, but I thought it would be useful to reduce all of those words down, condense all of those words down to one powerful message: Brexit is the emperor’s new clothes – that Britain has sold itself a project that cannot possibly deliver on what it promised.”

When asked if she was an “exhibitionist”, Dr Bateman said she was “completely comfortable” with her body and saw women’s bodies as “one of the big battlegrounds that we face today”.

The invitation is always open Jacob Rees-Mogg. #BrexitLeavesBritainNaked https://t.co/qYWQgobs9O — Dr Victoria Bateman (@vnbateman) February 8, 2019

“And actually by engaging with society about women’s bodies, one of the things it shows is the way in which people are quick to judge women purely based on their bodies,” she went on.

“For thousands of years men have controlled what women can do with their bodies, and women’s bodies have been seen as something purely existing for sex and for babies.

The Naked Truth

“So what is wrong with a modern day woman taking control of her body and using it to give voice to what is the most depressing political subject in Britain right now?”

The academic is no stranger to getting naked for a cause, having previously performed a stage show called Brexit: The Naked Truth.

The lecture was described as a way to build on Dr Bateman’s “well-known opposition to Brexit, including her naked protests in Cambridge after the referendum result”.

“Dr Bateman will demonstrate in her own individual style just how exposed and vulnerable Britain will be in a post-Brexit world,” it added.

Today co-presenter Nick Robinson noted at the end of the interview: “I want you to know that my computer screen was strategically placed so I have only been listening to what was being said.”

Additional reporting from Press Association.