Theresa May has dismissed leaked audio recordings of a speech by Boris Johnson in which he openly criticised her handling of Brexit.
Asked whether she expected an apology from the foreign secretary for undermining her position, the prime minister said: "The foreign secretary has strong views on Brexit, but so do I. That's why I'm getting on with delivering Brexit."
Speaking to Sky News at the G7 summit in Canada, Mrs May dodged a question about whether Mr Johnson had become "unsackable", but hit back at his assertion that the Irish border issue was "a folly" and that the "tail was wagging the dog".
"The issue of the border between Northern Ireland and Ireland is very important to the United Kingdom," she said.
"I have been very clear, and the government is very clear, that we want to ensure there is no hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland, that is an important border for the people who live both sides of it."
Yesterday, Brexit Secretary David Davis came close to resigning during a dispute with Mrs May over the wording of the government's proposed "backstop" solution to maintaining an open Irish border.
Mr Davis was talked down following the addition of a line stating that the UK would "expect" the need for any alignment with the EU customs union to expire by December 2021.
But that proposal has now been criticised by the EU's chief negotiator Michel Barnier, who said such arrangements could not apply UK-wide.
Responding to Mr Barnier's comments during interviews at the G7 summit, Mrs May said:
"We are in a negotiation. If you look at every stage of this negotiation, the European Commission will sometimes say they welcome our proposals, they're going to talk about our proposals and sometimes they throw some scepticism on those proposals.
"What happens? We sit down, we talk about them and we deliver."
A significant proportion of the prime minister's time at the meeting of the seven richest industrial countries in the world is likely to be taken up with attempts to persuade Donald Trump to step back from plans to impose tariffs on steel and aluminium entering the US from Canada, the EU and Mexico.
Briefing political journalists on the flight to Quebec, the prime minister suggested that while she disagreed with the tariffs, she wanted her role to be ensuring any EU tit-for-tat response would be "proportionate and within WTO rules".
1:52But any hopes of being an effective arbiter have been hindered by the fact she will not be having any formal bilateral meeting with the US president, despite Mr. Trump having such meetings confirmed with Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau, and French president Emmanuel Macron.
Theresa May twice refused to confirm whether she had requested a formal bilateral meeting when asked by Sky News, saying: "I talk with President Trump regularly, I talk on the telephone, I spoke to him earlier at the beginning of this week and I'll be talking to him around this G7."
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She also indicated she opposes the suggestion made by Mr Trump as he left the White House that Russia be readmitted to the G7, returning it to its previous formulation as the G8.
"We've always been clear that we should engage with Russia, but the phrase I've used is engage but beware, and let's remember why the G8 became the G7 – it was because Russia illegally annexed Crimea, and before any conversations of this sort can happen, we have to ensure that Russia is actually mending its ways and taking a different route."
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