LONDON -- The U.K. and the European Union plowed ahead Monday with plans to have their divorce deal signed, sealed and delivered within days as British Prime Minister Theresa May waited to see whether lawmakers opposed to the agreement had the numbers to challenge her leadership.
The draft agreement reached last week triggered an avalanche of criticism in Britain and left May fighting to keep her job even as British and EU negotiators raced to firm up a final deal before a weekend summit where EU leaders hope to approve it.
The 585-page, legally binding withdrawal agreement is as good as complete, but Britain and the EU still need to flesh out a far less detailed seven-page declaration on their future relations.
May said "an intense week of negotiations" lay ahead to finalize the framework.
The deal has infuriated pro-leave lawmakers in May's Conservative Party. The pro-leave faction wants a clean break with the bloc and argues that the close trade ties called for in the agreement May's government agreed to would leave Britain a vassal state, bound to EU rules it has no say in making.
Two Cabinet ministers, including Dominic Raab, the secretary for leaving the EU, resigned in protest, and opponents of the deal are trying to gather the signatures of 48 lawmakers needed to trigger a no-confidence vote.
"My expectation is that the number will be reached and there will be a vote [on May] at some point," Conservative lawmaker Crispin Blunt said. "One could argue that it would be better that that vote [on May's leadership] comes after the vote on the deal. If one were to sequence this properly: one would wait until we had the vote on the deal and then have the vote on the prime minister's position as leader of the Conservative Party."
The only person who knows for sure how many votes are in is Graham Brady, the chairman of the 1922 Committee of rank-and-file Conservative members of Parliament, but he said on Monday that the matter is private.
So far, 23 Conservative lawmakers have publicly declared they want May to go. Two more have indicated privately they have submitted letters. Newspapers have been claiming for weeks that the number is well over 40.
One Conservative lawmaker said that despite claiming to have up to 80 supporters, European Research Group members won't vote as a bloc when it comes to toppling May. Another person familiar with the number of letters Brady had received said the critical 48 mark had not been reached.
One pro-leave Conservative lawmaker, Simon Clarke, urged wavering colleagues Monday to join the rebellion, saying "it is quite clear to me that the captain is driving the ship at the rocks."
Even if May sees off such a challenge, she still has to get the deal approved by Parliament. Her Conservatives don't have a parliamentary majority, and whether she can persuade enough lawmakers to back the agreement is uncertain.
It is also unclear what would happen if Parliament rejected the deal when it is put to a vote, likely next month.
May's government relies for survival on the votes of Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party, which struck a deal last year to back the Conservatives on major legislation, including finance bills. But the Democratic Unionist Party opposes the EU exit deal's plans for keeping the border between the U.K.'s Northern Ireland and EU member Ireland open after Britain leaves the bloc.
In a warning to May, Democratic Unionist Party lawmakers abstained Monday during several votes on the government's finance bill.
May argues that abandoning the plan, with Britain's March 29 departure date just over four months away, could lead to the EU exit being delayed or abandoned, or to a disorderly and economically damaging "no deal" exit.
But opposition Labor Party leader Jeremy Corbyn said his lawmakers would vote against May's agreement and also try to block a "no-deal" exit.
The agreement also must be approved by the European Parliament. Manfred Weber, who leads the EU legislature's largest group, said the initial assessment of the center-right European People's Party was "very encouraging, very positive."
But, he added, "it must be clear to our British partners that there will be no renegotiation of this text that is now on the table."
Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn said the deal "is the best one possible."
"There is no better one for this crazy Brexit," Asselborn said as EU foreign ministers met in Brussels before the Sunday summit of member country leaders at which the bloc intends to sign off on the deal.
Most contentious negotiating issues have been resolved, but Spain insisted at the Brussels meeting that it needed more clarity on how Gibraltar, the British territory at the southern tip of the Iberian peninsula, would be dealt with.
EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier said the EU foreign ministers "have agreed to the principle" of a one-off extension of the post-exit transition period if the two sides need more time to finalize a trade deal.
Under the divorce agreement, Britain would be bound by EU rules during the transition. It is due to end in December 2020 but can be extended by mutual agreement if more time is needed.
Barnier wouldn't give a specific end date for the extension. It's a delicate issue for May, because some in her party worry the extension could be used to trap Britain in the EU's rules indefinitely.
May says any extension must be finished before the next U.K. election, scheduled for the first half of 2022.
May tried to build public and business support for the deal on Monday, telling business lobby group the Confederation of British Industry that it "fulfills the wishes of the British people" to leave the EU, by taking back control of the U.K.'s laws, money and borders.
May confirmed the government's plan to end the automatic right of EU citizens to live and work in the U.K., saying Britain's future immigration policy will be based on skills, rather than nationality.
She said EU nationals would no longer be able to "jump the queue ahead of engineers from Sydney or software developers from Delhi" -- a phrase that risked further upsetting EU citizens in Britain, who have faced more than two years of uncertainty about their future status.
British businesses, longing for an end to uncertainty about what rules they will face after leaving the EU, have broadly welcomed the agreement. But some are unhappy with the immigration plans, which have yet to be revealed in detail.
Carolyn Fairbairn of the Confederation of British Industry urged the government not to make "a false choice between high- and low-skilled workers" that would leave many sectors short-staffed.
May said she was confident the deal "will work for the U.K."
"And let no one be in any doubt - I am determined to deliver it," she said.
In Brussels, Austria's minister for Europe, Gernot Bluemel, struck a more melancholy tone.
"A painful week in European politics is starting," he said. "We have the divorce papers on the table; 45 years of difficult marriage are coming to an end."
Information for this article was contributed by Jill Lawless and Raf Casert of The Associated Press, and by Kitty Donaldson of Bloomberg News.
A Section on 11/20/2018