Theresa May has defended her refusal to guarantee the rights of EU nationals currently living in the UK, telling prime minister’s questions that Donald Tusk’s letter blaming Britain for the uncertainty showed it was vital to maintain a bargaining hand.

Guaranteeing the rights of EU nationals in Britain without first getting mutual assurances over Britons based in the bloc, as demanded by Labour, would have left the latter group “high and dry”, May argued.

The prime minister said she wanted to sort out the issue of mutual rights “at an early stage of negotiations” with the EU, but she appeared to rule out a deal before the two-year process triggered by article 50, due to be invoked next spring.

At the end of a stormy session at which May and Jeremy Corbyn exchanged blows over funding for the NHS and social care, May was asked about the letter from Tusk, president of the European council.

Replying to a group of Conservative MPs who said the lack of clarity over the rights of UK nationals elsewhere in the EU, and EU citizens based in Britain, had caused “anxiety and uncertainty”, Tusk wrote that this was entirely caused by the Brexit vote, and that the MPs’ argument “had nothing to do with reality”.

Peter Lilley, a strongly pro-leave Conservative MP, asked May if the message from Tusk – who he wrongly identified as Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European commission – had “put EU processes ahead of common humanity”.

May said: “I think it is right that we want to give reassurance to British citizens living in the EU, and to EU citizens living here in the UK.



“But I think the reaction that we have seen shows it was absolutely right for us not to do what the Labour party wanted us to do, which was simply to give away the guarantee for rights of EU citizens here in the UK. As we have seen, that would have left UK citizens in Europe high and dry.”

Much of the rest of prime minister’s questions was taken up with Corbyn pressing his opposite number over the aftermath of last week’s autumn statement, particularly what he called the “failure” of the government’s long-term economic plan, and funding for the NHS and social care.

“I’m not entirely sure where the government’s credibility lies on borrowing, since they are borrowing even more, the deficit is increasing and people are suffering,” Corbyn said.



The Labour leader continued: “Why was there not one penny more to social care in the autumn statement?”



May responded that there was “absolutely no doubt the social care system is under pressure”, noting the extra 1 million people aged over 65 since 2010, but insisted the government had pushed through extra spending on this. The NHS and local authorities needed to work better together on social care, she added.

Corbyn responded by asking May why the government had cut corporation tax, saying: “Just what is this government’s real sense of priorities?”

The prime minister argued that under Labour’s former shadow chancellor Ed Balls – “lately of Strictly fame”, as she put it – there was no extra money promised for social care, adding: “Conservatives [are] putting money into the NHS and social care, Labour would deny it.”

There was less discussion of Brexit, though the Green MP, Caroline Lucas, did open the session by decrying the lack of government information about its plans.

The Conservative MP for Devizes, Claire Perry, also raised the issue, in part to coin a new conjoined word which she termed “Smexit”, meaning a “smart and smooth Brexit”.