Theresa May says she will stay Prime Minister for entire Brexit negotiations

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Theresa May has pledged to stay Prime Minister for the entirety of the two-year Brexit negotiating process – facing down her critics who say she should quit after a weak election result that saw her lose the majority won by David Cameron and blow a 20-point poll lead.

Asked during a visit to Hamburg for the G20 whether those sitting around the table expected her to be in place as leader in two years time, the Prime Minister said:

“Yes. We will be playing our absolutely full part and I’ll be playing my full part and the issues that we are discussing are important.”

Having triggered Article 50 at the start of this year, Ms May has just under two years to complete the secession process from the European Union. She gave no hint about when or if she would eventually step down.

Her comments follow claims by her Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson that the Prime Minister’s political prospects became “very difficult” after the general election result.

Mr Johnson went on to say he believed Ms May had turned her situation around after the setback with “unbelievable grace and steel” and “put things back together” in the period after the vote.

The latest poll from YouGov for The Times newspaper shows Labour with an eight-point lead over the Tories, a result that would likely give Jeremy Corbyn’s party a majority of seats in the House of Commons if there was a second general election.

A survey of Tory activists published by the ConservativeHome website shows that party opinion has turned sharply against Ms May since the election, with her party’s view of her now net negative.

No single figure has stepped up to replace her leadership of the party for the crunch negotiations, however. The most popular senior figure in the party among activists is now David Davis, the Brexit Secretary – who has overtaken Mr Johnson’s previous lead.

During her visit to Hamburg Ms May is set to hold bilateral talks with US President Donald Trump as well as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.