Theresa May has been asked when she decided to “become a dictator” while answering questions on Brexit posed by readers of the Daily Express.

As part of her campaign to sell her deal with Brussels ahead of next week’s crunch House of Commons vote, the prime minister agreed to answer queries from the Eurosceptic newspaper’s readers.

After a string of questions on the referendum, free trade and immigration policy, the final inquiry the Daily Express put to Mrs May came from John Richardson, a reader in Fife.

He asked: “When did you choose to become a dictator?”

The embattled premier did not directly respond to the provocative question.

In her written reply, Ms May simply reiterated that her deal would “deliver on the will of the people – despite a line-up of powerful voices saying I should betray the referendum result”.

There was little sign in the rest of the Q&A – published on the Daily Express website – of the direction the questions would take.

Mr and Mrs Newman, from Berkshire, asked the PM why she was not walking away from a “bad deal”, as she had said she would when the negotiations began.

Mr Baker, from Coventry, wanted to know why Britain would still have to pay the £39n so-called “divorce bill” if the deal meant “we are still shackled to Europe”.

Charles Maddocks, from Somerset, wanted Mrs May to allay his fears that her agreement would see the UK’s armed forces fighting as a “federal service” of the EU.

Shortly after the Withdrawal Agreement with the EU was published Mrs May embarked on a campaign to rally public support, even as it became clear large numbers of her own MPs would not vote for it.

Britain before Brexit: Southwest England Show all 14 1 /14 Britain before Brexit: Southwest England Britain before Brexit: Southwest England Bristol An urban fox uses the public toilets at Bristol Temple Meads train station, adapted to human civilisation, more confident now, wine under arm, dressed up, ready for the Saturday night ahead. Richard Morgan/The Independent Britain before Brexit: Southwest England Plymouth A distinctly 21st century image of friends hanging out. They will talk to each other, of course, in between these scenes of mobile gazing, but their phones will lead the conversations and their screens will set the agendas. Richard Morgan/The Independent Britain before Brexit: Southwest England Yeovil A sign sums up three aspects of the modern British high street: despairing indifference from the bottom up against the status quo; the rapid emergence of betting on the future; and a simple message of family togetherness. Richard Morgan/The Independent Britain before Brexit: Southwest England Royal Wootton Bassett Civilians look on in support of uniformed marchers – men, women and children – returning to the car park at the back of Iceland to finish the Armistice Day ceremony. Richard Morgan/The Independent Britain before Brexit: Southwest England Plymouth A lady stops to read a sign of solidarity with victims of suicide in the UK. The bearer of the sign completed a 32-minute silence to show her support for the 32 people who, on average, take their own lives in Britain every day. Richard Morgan/The Independent Britain before Brexit: Southwest England Bath A counter-attack on the dominant Armistice Day narrative of peace. It’s a risky and rare question to ask the high street in a city so adherent to the story of sacrifice. The heresy blends – or disappears – within a blur of urban reflections and the giddy faces of Christmas capitalism. Richard Morgan/The Independent Britain before Brexit: Southwest England Bristol Not quite the changing of colour that the charity sign has in mind, but I am thankful for this fleeting glimpse of a “green” landscape, bringing colour – momentarily – to an otherwise grey concrete and overcast city. Richard Morgan/The Independent Britain before Brexit: Southwest England Plymouth Fairground rides are assembled at the end of the high street in preparation for the turning-on of the Christmas lights. In the process of construction, when all the parts aren’t put together and fully formed, the ride and the flag and the worker look pathetic and comical. Richard Morgan/The Independent Britain before Brexit: Southwest England Royal Wootton Bassett There are gasps from the crowd as a veteran and a boy scout faint during the two-minute silence at the cenotaph on Armistice Day. They are cared for – in silence – as the ritual continues. Richard Morgan/The Independent Britain before Brexit: Southwest England Yeovil The devil draped in the St George’s cross barks from behind the window at a father and son on the street. Engraved on the plinth is a message fitting for an English hell – “The Devil’s Den awaits the virtuous for conversion” – where the good are corrupted in the process of assimilation. Richard Morgan/The Independent Britain before Brexit: Southwest England Plymouth Polish graffiti in support of the football team Legia Warsaw. I wonder about its intended audience. It can’t be for the non-Polish reading British majority, so it must be a territorial message for other Polish immigrants in the city. I speak with the lady in the picture and she presumes it’s Czech, because, as she told me, there are a lot of Czech people sleeping on the streets in Plymouth. Richard Morgan/The Independent Britain before Brexit: Southwest England Bristol Outside the Old Duke, three parts of three human bodies occupy different roles in the scene: one sits and smokes; one drinks and watches music; one sleeps on a picnic bench outside. Richard Morgan/The Independent Britain before Brexit: Southwest England Royal Wootton Bassett A family leaving the Armistice Day ceremony. The father holds his hand out to his boys, asking for their bond and union, and the elder boy, not wanting to leave his younger brother behind and imitating his role model, repeats the gesture. A genuine, unstaged, unposed human moment on a day so well-rehearsed. Richard Morgan/The Independent Britain before Brexit: Southwest England Plymouth A view of the Tinside Lido from the Hoe, deserted in late autumn, its pastel blue submerging into dirty water, darker than the sea, muddier than the hills. But it is still beautiful, not only geometrically with its lines and curves against the fluidity of the ocean, but also as an emblem of a British seaside culture slowly fading. Richard Morgan/The Independent

She has spent more than 12 hours speaking in debates in parliament and completed whirlwind tours of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

But her gruelling efforts have not yet swayed many Brexiteers, or even some Remainers.

The former Labour foreign secretary Margaret Beckett accused the PM of attempting to turn Britain into a “dictatorship”.

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Speaking on LBC, Ms Beckett said: “She hasn’t been willing to consult more widely, listen to anybody else.

“This is meant to be a democracy, and she’s trying to make it a dictatorship. It’s an enormous unprecedented mess.”