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Prime Minister Theresa May makes a statement in Downing Street, London, confirming there will be a vote of confidence in her leadership of the Conservative Party, Wednesday Dec. 12, 2018. The vote of confidence will be held in Parliament Wednesday evening, with the result announced soon after. AP/PTI[/caption]
London, Dec. 12 (PTI): Embattled British Prime Minister Theresa May will face a vote of no-confidence on Wednesday triggered by her own party lawmakers over her handling of the controversial Brexit deal, as she vowed to fight the latest challenge to her leadership with "everything I have got".
May is set to face a vote of no-confidence in her leadership after the required 48 MPs from her Conservative Party filed letters with the influential 1922 Committee, which represents rank-and-file Conservative MPs in the House of Commons.
"I will contest that vote with everything I have got," May said in a statement at Downing Street, warning that the leadership challenge will delay or even cancel Brexit.
"I stand ready to finish the job," the 62-year-old prime minister said.
May, who has been prime minister since shortly after the UK voted to leave the 28-member European Union in June, 2016, has faced criticism in her party for the Brexit plan she has negotiated.
The vote, triggered amid ongoing divisions over her Brexit deal, will take place in the form of a secret ballot on Wednesday evening.
May will need to convince a majority of MPs (158 out of 315 Conservative MPs) to be able to win the vote and then her leadership cannot be challenged for at least a year under Tory party rules.
According to some reports, so far at least 147 Tory MPs have publicly said they will vote for her, with many of her Cabinet ministers coming out in her support.
However, if she loses, the party will have to elect a new leader who will then go on to become the next British Prime Minister.
Some possible frontrunners being named in the UK media include former foreign secretary Boris Johnson, current foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt, home secretary Sajid Javid and work and pensions secretary Amber Rudd. But there does not seem to be a candidate with consensus across the pro and anti Brexit wings within the Tory party.
If there are multiple candidates, Conservative MPs hold a series of votes to choose two to go forward to a vote of all party members. As leader of the largest party in the House of Commons, the new Conservative leader would then be expected to be asked to form a government and become Prime Minister, without the need for a general election.
The challenge to May's leadership has been brought by Conservative MPs who think May has watered down the Brexit voters were promised in the landmark referendum held in 2016.
May had seen off an attempt by this group of Brexiteers to get rid of her last month.
The latest leadership challenge comes as she was desperately trying to rescue her Brexit deal and making efforts to convince European Union (EU) leaders to offer some concessions to convince Britain's MPs to vote for it on Tuesday, a day after she postponed a crucial parliamentary vote scheduled for this week over the Withdrawal Agreement struck with the EU.
She was due to travel to Dublin on Wednesday but will now remain in London to contest the no-confidence vote.
In her defiant statement, May said changing the Conservative Party leader would "put our country's future at risk and create uncertainty when we can least afford it".
She said: "A leadership election would not change the fundamentals of the negotiation or the Parliamentary arithmetic.
"Weeks spent tearing ourselves apart will only create more division just as we should be standing together to serve our country. None of that would be in the national interest."
She said she was making progress in her talks with EU leaders and vowed to "deliver on the referendum vote and seize the opportunities that lie ahead".
The Conservatives had to build a "country that works for everyone" and deliver "the Brexit people voted for".
"I have devoted myself unsparingly to these tasks ever since I became prime minister and I stand ready to finish the job."
The vote will be preceded by her addressing her MPs and making her pitch to be allowed to remain in her post. There is some speculation that in the event that she does not win the vote with a decisive figure, she may choose to step down any way.
Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Tory MP who has led backbench calls for her to go, said: "May's plan would bring down the government if carried forward. But our party will rightly not tolerate it.
"Conservatives must now answer whether they wish to draw ever closer to an election under May's leadership. In the national interest, she must go."
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, who held talks with May Brussels on Tuesday, said the EU would not "renegotiate" the deal but there was room for "further clarifications".
Britain's MPs have to give the go-ahead for May's deal if it is to come into effect when the UK leaves the EU on Brexit Day March 29, 2019.
But deep divisions remain on all sides of the House of Commons over the so-called "backstop", a temporary customs arrangement designed to prevent the need for checkpoints at the Irish border if a long-term solution between the UK and EU cannot be agreed post-Brexit.
Critics of the arrangement are unhappy that under the terms of the legally binding Withdrawal Agreement, the UK cannot exit the backstop without the EU agreeing to it, which could effectively leave the UK bound by EU customs laws beyond Brexit.
Downing Street had said a House of Commons vote on the agreement will be held on the deal before January 21, as that is the deadline enshrined in the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018. That deadline now looks more and more uncertain.