Theresa May says she is 'getting on with the job' amid speculation over her future as PM
2 min read
Theresa May has said she is "getting on with the job" as speculation continues to mount about how long she will remain Prime Minister.
David Davis and Boris Johnson are both being touted by Conservative MPs as potential replacements for Mrs May, who has come in for intense criticism since the general election.
Tories are furious that she managed to lose the party's Commons majority, despite having a 20-point lead over Labour at the start of the campaign.
Mrs May's response to last week's Grenfell Tower fire, when she initially failed to meet with victims of local community representatives, has also increased the pressure on her.
But at a Downing Street press conference with new Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar this afternoon, the Prime Minister rejected the criticisms.
She said: "The Government is getting on with the job of delivering on the various issues and challenges which this country faces.
"One of them of course is the Brexit negotiations, those have started formally today, so we put in place the work to enable us to reach that deep and special partnership with the European Union that we believe is not just in our interests but also the interests of the European Union for the future. So I and the Government are getting on with that job."
A Cabinet minister told PoliticsHome that Tory MPs are focused on getting to parliamentary summer recess in five weeks before "re-assessing" the situation ahead of the Conservative party conference in October.
Sources close to Boris Johnson - who would be the front-runner in any fresh Tory leadership election - said he was "keeping his head down" so as not to add to the speculation about the Prime Minister's future.
A Downing Street spokeswoman said: "The Prime Minister is chairing Cobra right now, later on today she'll meet the Irish Taoiseach, after that she will chair a third meeting of the Grenfell Tower taskforce, on Wednesday her government will set out a Queen's Speech, on Thursday she goes to the European Council.
"These are incredibly challenging times, with two terrible incidents in recent weeks and she's leading the country through them."
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