The British PM has said she would not let removal talks distract her from a critical week of negotiations. Some MPs from her own party seek to oust her after seeing the details of the contentious draft Brexit deal.
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Do Brits still want Brexit?
02:29
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British Prime Minister Theresa May on Sunday told her critics that removing her from office would not make Brexit negotiations easier and warned that toppling her would risk delaying Britain's exit from the European Union.
May has been facing a serious challenge to her leadership since she unveiled a draft divorce deal with the EU on Wednesday. Several ministers, including her Brexit minister, have resigned and some lawmakers from her own party have submitted letters to trigger a no-confidence vote against her.
"These next seven days are going to be critical, they are about the future of this country," May told British broadcaster Sky News, referring to the number of days left before an emergency EU summit to discuss the deal on November 25. "I am not going to be distracted from the important job.
"A change of leadership at this point isn't going to make the negotiations any easier," she added. "What it will do is mean that there is a risk that actually we delay the negotiations and that is a risk that Brexit gets delayed or frustrated."
May said negotiating teams were working "as we speak" and she intended to go to Brussels and meet European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker. She said she also plans to speak to other EU leaders ahead of the summit.
He described the 585-page divorce deal as "fatally flawed" and said he did not think it would be approved by Parliament, where May's Conservatives don't have a parliamentary majority.
"I still think a deal could be done, but it is very late in the day now and we need to change course," Raab told the BBC. "The biggest risk of no deal is taking a bad deal to the House of Commons ... it is very important to take the action now."
Opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said his party, which has 257 MPs, will not support May's deal when it comes to a vote in Parliament.
He demanded that May return to Brussels and renegotiate the divorce deal, which he described as a "one-way agreement" in which the EU "calls all the shots."
The draft agreement envisions Britain leaving the EU as planned on March 29, but remaining inside the bloc's single market and bound by its rules until the end of December 2020.
The deal also includes a contentious "backstop" solution that would keep the UK in a customs arrangement with the EU until a permanent trade treaty is signed. The arrangement is aimed at avoiding a hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland.
A day after Prime Minister Theresa May presented the UK-EU draft withdrawal agreement to her Cabinet, a slew of ministers have quit in protest at the deal. Rob Mudge takes a look at who's gone so far.
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We was raabed
Dominic Raab, the UK's Brexit secretary, who was nominally the chief British negotiator for the deal now on the table said on Thursday: " I cannot in good conscience support the terms proposed for our deal with the EU." Raab was reportedly disgruntled at being sidelined in the negotiations in favor of Olly Robbins — a civil servant who's close to May.
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On her vey
Esther McVey, the work and pensions minister, tendered her resignation shortly after Raab. In a letter to May she wrote that "It will be no good trying to pretend to [voters] that this deal honors the result of the referendum when it is obvious to everyone it doesn't."
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'UK in a half-way house'
Shailesh Vara, the junior Northern Ireland minister, became the first member of May's government to resign over the deal on Thursday. Vara, who voted for remain in the 2016 referendum, said May's deal "leaves the UK in a half-way house with no time limit on when we will finally be a sovereign nation."
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Not so brave
Suella Braverman, a junior minister in the Department for Exiting the European Union, also quit saying in a letter "I now find myself unable to sincerely support the deal agreed yesterday by cabinet." The proposed Northern Ireland backstop, she wrote, was not
what the British people voted for, and threatened to break up the United Kingdom.
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'Unacceptable deal'
Junior Education Minister Anne-Marie Trevelyan said in her resignation letter that it was now clear to her that "the negotiations have been built on the UK trying to appease the EU and we have allowed ourselves to be led into a deal which is unacceptable to the 17.4 million voters who asked for us to step away from the EU project and become an independent nation once again."
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'Does not deliver a good and fair Brexit'
Ranil Jayawardena, parliamentary private secretary at the Department for Work and Pensions, wrote in his resignation letter that the draft deal is not fair to those who voted to leave the EU "taking back control of our laws, our borders and our money. The draft agreement does not do that."
Image: Getty Images/AFP/A. Dennis
Brothers Johnson
Jo Johnson, the younger brother of Boris, who resigned as foreign secretary over Brexit in July, set the ball rolling last week after he resigned as transport minister over what he called Theresa May's "delusional" Brexit plans. Johnson — who backs Britain remaining in the EU — said he is supporting calls for a second referendum on whether the country should leave the bloc.
