May tells critics: Fall in line or Forget Brexit!

• May took on her detractors in a punchy address to the party's annual conference.

British Prime Minister Theresa May battled to unite her Conservative Party on Wednesday, telling critics to abandon their dreams of a "perfect" Brexit and "come together" as divorce negotiations with the European Union enter their tough final phase.

May took on her detractors in a punchy address to the party's annual conference, a day after a rival, former foreign secretary Boris Johnson, challenged her authority with a crowd-pleasing speech of his own."If we all go off in different directions in pursuit of our own visions of the perfect Brexit, we risk ending up with no Brexit at all," May said in a warning to Johnson and others who aim to oust her or force her to change course.

"A Brexit that might make Britain stronger 50 years from now is no good to you if it makes your life harder today," she noted.

Britain's governing party is deeply divided over the country's impending departure from the EU, with pro- and anti-EU camps both criticising the prime minister's negotiations with the bloc.

With just under six months until Britain leaves the EU on March 29, the speech on Wednesday was an attempt by May to solve her Brexit conundrum.

The EU has rejected her proposed Brexit deal and demanded new ideas from Britain. But pro-Brexit members of May's Conservative government oppose any softening of the UK's stance.

So the negotiations with the EU have ground to a halt, UK businesses are growing jittery and Conservative Brexiteers like Johnson are demanding that the UK make a clean break with the bloc - deal or no deal.

Less than three weeks before a make-or-break EU summit in Brussels, May said divorce talks were entering their "toughest phase". But she rejected calls by Eurosceptics to walk away from the talks, saying that "leaving without a deal - introducing tariffs and costly checks at the border would be a bad outcome for the UK and the EU".