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John Redwood ducks out of radio debate with young activist Femi Oluwole
John Redwood and Femi Oluwole. (Photograph: David Cheskin/PA and Femi Oluwole/Twitter) - Credit: Archant
John Redwood, the Conservative MP and outspoken Brexiteer, appeared to duck out of a debate with a young Remain activist on national radio on Sunday afternoon.
Redwood was invited as a guest on to Andrew Castle's LBC programme, along with the co-founder of Our Future, Our Choice, Femi Oluwole.
In a clip going viral on social media Oluwole is invited to give his take on possible customs partnerships, with the Remainer giving a passionate response on why Theresa May has yet to agree to any of the options on the table for Brexit.
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Oluwole told the programme: 'The reason they can't decide is because their own experts say that every possible Brexit scenario would leave this country financially/economically worse off.
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'Which means that right now, what they're trying to do is something that they know will harm the country. That makes it official Tory policy to harm the country.
'So of course they can't find a position, because there's nothing that's going to actually be acceptable to the British people.'
However, rather than respond to the point made by the young pro-Remain activist that all of the Tories' options will harm the country, Redwood says he would prefer not to, explaining that a debate had not been mentioned in the invitation.
He tells Castle: 'I wasn't told we were having a debate, you asked me to do an interview on what the options are for our future trading agreement and I'm very happy to talk about that.'
Instead the MP went on to use the interview to knock the European Union - saying that it is working against the interests of their member states 'in a sad way.'
He added: 'Theresa May has consistently said that we will be leaving the Customs Union and the Single Market at the same time.'
Alastair Campbell tweeted: 'Femi 10 Vulcan 0 -- the Brextremists just will not debate with people who know the facts, and stick to them.'
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