BRITISH Prime Minister Theresa May held a meeting of her Cabinet yesterday, seeking to unify her government a day after it was thrown into turmoil when two senior ministers quit over her plans for trade ties with the European Union after Brexit.

With less than nine months until Britain is due to leave the EU, May has been wrestling with how to enact Brexit without jeopardizing business with the world’s biggest trading bloc of 27 countries whilst forging new global deals.

Her plan for a “business-friendly” Brexit prompted the resignations of Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and Brexit minister David Davis, but sterling rebounded as investors bet she would not face an immediate challenge to her leadership.

At a meeting with her Conservative Party lawmakers Monday, she was cheered and applauded by many as she warned them that internal squabbling could pave the way for socialist opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn to take power instead.

“I think it is right that the Cabinet backs the prime minister and speaks with one voice and if people don’t do that then they have to go,” Justice Secretary David Gauke told BBC radio.

Senior lawmakers in her party said they did not expect the prime minister to face a vote of no confidence, although some Conservatives were still saying that she should go.

If May survives the domestic political turmoil, she still has to convince EU leaders that her proposals can work. Europe’s most powerful leader, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, arrived in London later yesterday.

May’s proposals for a future EU relationship after Britain departs from the bloc next March had taken two years of internal government wrangling to agree, but within 48 hours Johnson and Davis had resigned saying they could not back the plans. Three junior ministers also quit their posts.

“Brexit should be about opportunity and hope,” Johnson said in a scathing resignation letter that was echoed in headlines in a number of Britain’s national newspapers. “That dream is dying, suffocated by needless self-doubt.”

May, having finally signaled her vision for Brexit, spent two hours in parliament defiantly defending the plans and called for Brussels to engage fully or risk the damaging prospect of Britain leaving the bloc with no deal in place.

(SD-Agencies)