Britain's May faces up to leadership challenge

Opponents of Britain's prime minister, Theresa May, mounted a challenge against her leadership of the Conservative Party on Wednesday, a move that culminated in a secret ballot of the party's members of Parliament later in the evening.

May said ahead of the challenge from within her own party - a so-called vote of no confidence - that the issue was a distraction that could end up "delaying or even stopping Brexit" and insisted she would "contest that vote with everything I have got".

She had been under pressure for months over her handling of negotiations with the European Union about the United Kingdom's pending exit from the bloc at the end of March.