May takes defiant stance with European Union over Brexit

"It is not acceptable to simply reject the other side's proposals without a detailed explanation and counter proposals", May said.

"We want to ensure predictability for our people and businesses so we want to somehow ease, mitigate the sometimes very tense and hard negotiations for Britain's exit from the European Union because we really want to break the impasse" between them, Morawiecki added.

May's former Brexit minister David Davis has said up to 40 lawmakers from the Conservative Party will vote against her Brexit plans.

"On the back of (the pound's fall), it's interesting the dollar got a bit of a bid as well". It was trading 1.3 per cent lower at 1.3095 as of 2.16pm in London.

French President Emmanuel Macron took the most severe tone, saying Brexit must exact a "cost" and urged the 27 other leaders to stand firm.

Although that's the newest information in May's speech, it is essentially a call out of the EU's leaders and their response to her Brexit proposal. A good relationship at the end of this process depends on it.

'No deal is not my working assumption, ' said EU Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker.

It's worth noting that the Brexit referendum - much like any important political issue - completely divided Great Britain.

Popular tabloid The Sun went furthest in criticising the EU leaders, mocking up pictures of Macron and EU Council leader Donald Tusk as "Euro mobsters" under the headline "EU Dirty Rats".

Despite all the heated British rhetoric, the EU's position is not new.

On the issue of Northern Ireland and the border, May said: "Creating any form of customs border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK would not respect that Northern Ireland is an integral part of the United Kingdom, in line with the principle of consent, as set out clearly in the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement".

"The Chequers plan can not be "take it or leave it".

Anti-Brexit campaigner Gina Miller said the events in Salzburg "stink of incompetence" but said that Mr Tusk's actions were "childish". Instead it promises to keep Britain bound up in European Union institutions or under ECJ jurisdiction in such a way that it would negate the clear request made by voters in June 2016: that we should take back control - democratic control - from the Brussels elites.

The British government argues this would draw a border down the Irish Sea and undermine the constitutional integrity of the country.

"But the EU is proposing to achieve this by effectively keeping Northern Ireland in the customs union".

"I actually think the Chequers proposal is not ideal but broadly represents the kind of compromising package that protects Britain's industrial base, that protects agriculture and represents a positive position to take into the negotiations", he said.

"The political games from both the European Union and our government need to end because no deal is not an option".

European leaders refused to give ground to May at a summit in Salzburg on Thursday, warning that her proposals for future economic ties based on a UK-EU free-trade area only for goods would "not work".