Cambridge academic Victoria Bateman repeats invitation to have a debate but says Tory MP can keep his clothes on

The naked pro-Europe campaigner Victoria Bateman has repeated her challenge to a debate with the arch-Brexiter Jacob Rees-Mogg on live TV but has dropped her demand that the Tory MP should also take off his clothes for the event.

Appearing nude on ITV Good Morning Britain, Bateman, an economics fellow at Cambridge University, again threw down the gauntlet to the chair of the European Research Group as she had last week on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. But this time she said that Rees-Mogg could keep his clothes on.

Profile Jacob Rees-Mogg Show Hide Born 24 May 1969, Hammersmith Career Degree in history at Trinity College, Oxford. Works in investment banking before co-founding Somerset Capital Management in 2007, which manages investment funds and claims to have $7.0bn under management. Stands unsuccessfully for parliament in Central Fife in 1997 and The Wrekin in 2001, before being elected in North East Somerset in 2010. Chair of the Tory backbench European Research Group since January. High point Being named as favourite to become next Tory leader on a poll at Conservative Home in September 2017. When asked if he wanted to become PM, he said “I think want is very much the wrong word,” and added it would be “very, very difficult” given he has six children and is a “family man”. Low point A series of exchanges on abortion with Emma Barnett on BBC Radio 5 Live that culminated in him saying he was unsure about abortion in the case of rape, describing a termination in such circumstances as a “second wrong”. He says On not having changed a nappy: “You’d be amazed at how many men I have spoken to who have said they’ve not changed any nappies either, or lucky me ... It’s absolutely true nanny would not think it a good idea for me to be changing nappies. She thinks it is her job and people do take a pride in their job.” They say “I’m not sure I’ve ever seen him out of a waistcoat”: Tessa Munt, former Lib Dem MP for Wells.“Bigot!”: protesters at the University of the West of England. Photograph: Jack Taylor/Getty Images Europe

Speaking behind a TV filter that blurred her chest, Bateman said: “I think it is the Brexiteers who should be wearing the emperor’s new clothes and not a remainer like me, but I perfectly understand if he claims that he doesn’t have a double-breasted birthday suit, why he may wish to wear a normal suit. I’m happy to debate it with him, but I will insist on wearing the emperor’s new clothes that are Brexit.”

Rees-Mogg has yet to respond.

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The anti-Brexit message written on Bateman’s body was obscured by a blur filter, so it was left to the presenter Richard Madeley to describe it.

“Across this part,” he said pointing to his sternum, “it says: ‘Brexit’. Then above your right breast it says: ‘Leaves’ then above your left breast it says: ‘Britain’. And then under both breasts it says: ‘Naked’.”

Bateman told the programme that she had had thousands of messages of abuse but also messages of support since launching her naked Brexit protest.

Defending the protest she said: “We see naked women around us all the time. We see the scantily clad in advertising, there’s a whole world of pornography out there. If you go to any art gallery in the UK or across the world you will see nudes in the world.”

“The common thing about all of those women is that they are silent. They are not allowed a voice. What is shocking perhaps to some people is a woman who is naked with a voice.”

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Bateman added: “The key message that I want to deliver is that Brexit is the emperor’s new clothes. What high-profile Brexiters promised Brexit voters is just not possible to deliver. The British economy faces many many problems right now: shortage of housing, problems with the NHS, wages stagnating, too many people up and down the country using food banks. But the European Union is not the cause of those problems, so how is Brexit going to help us solve those problems?”

She also insisted she was “not an exhibitionist”, adding: “Why should I as a woman only be able to use my body for sex and babies, why shouldn’t I also be able to use my body to deliver an important political message?”