The British prime minister says the numbers don't add up for a no-confidence vote, while her fomer Brexit secretary claims Britain is "bullied" in Brussels.
ADVERTISEMENTBritish Prime Minister Theresa May enters another tense week facing a direct threat to her power from the Tory hardline Brexit faction.
Conservatives who want her replaced are now playing their hand, but May claims they have no cards, and nothing beats the deal on the table.
''You know a change of leadership at this point isn't going to make the negotiations any easier and it's not going to change the parliamentary arithmetic. What it will do is bring in a degree of uncertainty, that's uncertainty for people and their jobs. What it will do is mean it is a risk that actually we delay the negotiations and that's a risk that Brexit gets delayed or frustrated,'' she said on a Sunday political TV show.
Arch-Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg is just one of a group that is determined Britain should leave, deal or no deal at all. He is demanding May goes, and voices are growing that the Brexit poison may lead to a split Conservative party.
Other voices are, like the short-lived former Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab, claiming the game is being fixed, even if he says he won't vote against May.
"I do think we've been bullied, I do think we've been subject to what is pretty close to blackmail frankly for your viewers at home. And I do think there is a point at which, it probably should have been done before, where we just say: 'Sorry, this is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. We cannot accept those dictated terms," he claimed on a rival TV show.
May says the next seven days will be critical, and they climax at a European leaders' summit next weekend, after May spends time in Brussels working on the final political declaration about Britain’s future trading relationship with the EU.