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Theresa May reverts to Brexit message after social care U-turn

Theresa May campaigning with Zac Goldsmith in Richmond on Monday.
Theresa May campaigning with Zac Goldsmith in Richmond on Monday. Photograph: Steve Parsons/PA

Theresa May will claim that “economic prosperity will suffer, jobs and livelihoods will be put at risk, and with them the security and peace of mind of working families” if the government fails to secure a successful Brexit negotiation with the European Union.

The prime minister will make the comments in a speech in the West Midlands designed to relaunch her election campaign after the Manchester terror attack and division within her party following her U-turn on social care plans.

Ramping up the language in her warnings about the high-stakes nature of the talks with the EU27, May will say: “If we don’t make a success of Brexit, we won’t have the financial means to fund the public services upon which we all rely. Our National Health Service – the institution which is there for us at the most difficult times – needs us to make a success of Brexit to ensure we can afford to provide it with the resources it needs for the future.

“Every school in every village, town and city needs us to make a success of Brexit.”

She will claim that success is vital to ensure a “sustainable welfare system” and to “go on investing in transport infrastructure – our roads and bridges and railways,” adding: “Everything depends on getting Brexit.”

However, the prime minister made clear during Monday night’s television clash with Jeremy Corbyn that she was prepared to walk away without an agreement, repeatedly saying “no deal is better than a bad deal”.

May will make a pitch at working class voters: “If your patriotism is deemed somehow distasteful, your concerns about immigration dismissed as parochial, your desire for your country to make the decisions that matter to Britain here in Britain ridiculed and ignored for too long.”

She will accuse the EU27 of “adopting an aggressive negotiating position” and will argue that only she can offer the needed strength in the talks that will start 11 days after the general election.

“Jeremy Corbyn is in no position to provide that kind of leadership. He has no plan to deliver Brexit, and he has already admitted he would give control of our borders and control of our laws back to Brussels,” she will add, claiming that the Brexit vote was a “quiet revolution” driven by people who felt left behind.