UK PM fires back at party rebels

Britain's beleaguered Prime minister appealed to her increasingly mutinous party on Monday to back her Brexit strategy in the face of deep divisions at home and a tough negotiating stance from the EU.

Theresa May told a raucous sessions of parliament she was not afraid of strong criticism while negotiating more agreeable terms for Britain's exit from the European Union in March.

"If doing those things means I get difficult days in Brussels, then so be it," she said over the din of jeers from the opposition as well as some members of her own party.

"The Brexit talks are not about my interests. They are about the national interest -- and the interests of the whole of our United Kingdom."

May has come under unrelenting attack in the closing stages of Brexit talks that still cannot find a suitable way to keep the border open between EU member Ireland and North Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom.

She returned from an unproductive summit in Brussels last week to a new and more intense round of rumours about an imminent leadership challenge from within her party's most staunch pro-Brexit wing.

MPs in her own party criticised her for being open to the idea of extending until 2021 the post-Brexit transition period in which the details of future trade terms are to be ironed out.

One newspaper quoted an unnamed MP saying May was entering "the killing zone".