Warring Tory ministers have been told to give Rishi Sunak space as they threaten to resign over Brexit.
The PM is battling to get a new deal on trading arrangements for Northern Ireland over the line.
But he has been warned frontbenchers could quit if he fails to give them what they want.
Jacob Rees-Mogg yesterday accused Mr Sunak of imitating Theresa May ’s doomed Brexit strategy.
The former Cabinet minister questioned why “so much political capital” was being spent on brokering a new deal without ensuring the Democratic Unionist Party and hardline Tory Eurosceptics were on board.
But health minister Maria Caulfield desperately pleaded for colleagues to remain calm and “support the Prime Minister”.
The Brexiteer who quit Mrs May’s frontbench over her Chequers plan told Times Radio: “I’m not quite sure what people are resigning over because a deal hasn’t been done.
“Let’s wait and see what the final deal looks like."
Urging ministers to ditch their threats to the PM, she added: “He’s at the negotiation stage… I think we have to give the prime minister space because we have to get this right, because ultimately, we can all speculate about what’s in or isn’t in the deal.
“But it’s the people in Northern Ireland who are suffering at the moment without an assembly in place.”
On his ConservativeHome podcast, Mr Rees-Mogg said: “There seems to me to be no point in agreeing a deal that does not restore powersharing [at Stormont].
“That must be the objective. If it doesn’t achieve that objective, I don’t understand why the Government is spending political capital on something that won’t ultimately succeed.”
Foreign Secretary James Cleverly and Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris held fresh talks with the EU’s Maros Sefcovic yesterday.
Ahead of the meeting, Mr Sefcovic said: “We clearly can see the finishing line, but in such a negotiation being close doesn’t mean being done.”
Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said he was unsure whether a breakthrough could come this week, but said a “huge amount of progress has been made”.
Mr Sunak yesterday told his Cabinet meeting “intensive negotiations with the EU continue on resolving the issues with the way the protocol was being enforced”.
The Prime Minister’s spokesman said: “Negotiations have progressed and that is to be welcomed, but there still remain a number of unresolved issues.
“And as is the nature of these negotiations it is often some of the more long-lasting challenges that need to be addressed as you get to this point, and that’s not unusual.”
