British Prime Minister Theresa May has warned there may be “no Brexit at all” because of continued attempts to undermine her plan to leave the European Union.
“My message to the country this weekend is simple: we need to keep our eyes on the prize,” Ms May wrote in the Mail on Sunday newspaper.
“If we don’t, we risk ending up with no Brexit at all.”
Earlier this week, two senior ministers resigned in protest at Ms May’s plans for trade with the EU after Britain leaves the bloc next March.
Her blueprint was then criticised in a newspaper interview by US President Donald Trump, a position he backtracked on during a meeting with Ms May on Friday.
Ms May also wrote in the Mail on Sunday article that Britain would take a tough stance in its next round of negotiations with the EU.
“Some people have asked whether our Brexit deal is just a starting point from which we will regress,” she said.
“Let me be clear. Our Brexit deal is not some long wish-list from which negotiators get to pick and choose. It is a complete plan with a set of outcomes that are non-negotiable.”
Later, speaking to the BBC, Ms May said Mr Trump had previously advised her to sue the European Union as part of her Brexit strategy, revealing a piece of advice Mr Trump said on Friday she had ignored for being too “brutal”.
“He told me I should sue the EU,” Ms May told BBC television.
“Sue the EU. Not go into negotiations — sue them.”
Ms May added that if party members called for a leadership spill she would stand in the contest, claiming that she is in it for the long term.
Ms May does not yet have a Brexit deal with the EU, so the British Government has stepped up planning for a so-called “no deal” Brexit that could spook financial markets and dislocate trade flows across Europe and beyond.
Boris Johnson’s resignation letter
Read Boris Johnson’s lengthy letter explaining why he could no longer support Prime minister Theresa May’s position on Brexit.
Ms May has repeatedly said Brexit would happen and has ruled out a re-run of the 2016 referendum, although French President Emmanuel Macron and billionaire investor George Soros have suggested that Britain could still change its mind.
David Davis, who resigned as Brexit Secretary last week, said it was an “astonishingly dishonest claim” to say there was no worked-out alternative to Ms May’s plan.
Writing in the Sunday Times, he said her plan would allow EU regulations to harm British manufacturers.
“Be in no doubt: under the government’s proposal our fingers would still be caught in this mangle and the EU would use it ruthlessly to punish us for leaving and handicap our future competitiveness,” Mr Davis said.