LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Teresa Mai survived a no-confidence ballot on her leadership of the Conservative Party and said after the vote she would go ahead with the task of completing the EU exit process for the British people and building a better future for the country.
In a brief press conference, Mai said she would seek legal and political guarantees from EU leaders on the special border arrangements between the EU member Ireland and Northern Ireland.
The British Prime Minister had warned before the vote hours that the change of leadership at the current stage will have negative repercussions on the country and on her party, because it will - in her belief - the reins of power to the opposition.
He opposed the withdrawal of confidence from May 200 members of the party while supported by 117. Conservative Party official Graham Brady said the party's deputies renewed confidence in their leader after failing to describe the party's hard-line party in mobilizing the majority needed to discredit them.
Although this vote has weakened May, it has fortified it for at least a year against any new challenge it may face within its own party.
The vote by the Conservative Party deputies was launched by the Prime Minister 48 MPs from her party to discredit her, or 15% of the bloc, the threshold required for the vote.
Immediately after the announcement of the result of the vote, the pound gained significantly, rising against the dollar by almost 1% to reach 1.2597 dollars per pound.
Mae had preceded this vote to rally support for her by announcing her intention to withdraw from power before the next legislative elections in 2022. She needed to support 159 votes to win a simple majority.
The motion for a no-confidence motion in May came on the heels of letters to that effect made by dozens of conservative MPs after the prime minister's decision to postpone a vote on Britain's exit agreement from the European Union, which it said it would lose.
While there are no more than four months ahead of the March 29 deadline for the British to leave the bloc, the pullout agreement reached by May has not been accepted by British lawmakers after members of Parliament attacked the Irish border issue .
May on Tuesday toured Europe, including Berlin, The Hague and Brussels, hoping to get concessions from Europe, but European leaders have confirmed that they will not renegotiate the withdrawal agreement, and that at best will provide clarifications to the agreement to help pass it from the British Parliament.
Conservative MPs and Mai's allies in the Irish Democratic Unionist Party fear that this temporary arrangement on the Irish border with the EU could become a permanent solution.