An angry-looking Theresa May confronted European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker on Friday after EU leaders rejected her latest Brexit proposals and he publicly chastised her approach to negotiations.
In response, the PM said: "I had a robust discussion with Jean-Claude - I think that's the sort of discussion you're able to have when you have developed a working relationship and you work well together".
She said that without the promise of help she would put her Brexit deal to a vote in the Commons next week.
And European Council president Donald Tusk said: "My impression is that in fact we have treated Prime Minister May with much greater empathy and respect than some British MPs, for sure".
Juncker later explained that he was talking about the overall debate in Britain, where it is often hard to tell who is on which side, not referring to May personally.
"So we would like, within a few weeks, our United Kingdom friends to set out their expectations for us because this debate is sometimes nebulous and imprecise and I would like clarifications".
'And what came out of that was his clarity that actually he'd been talking - when he used that particular phrase - he'd been talking about a general level of debate'.
What they said was not audible but official video of their exchange as other leaders took their seats showed May repeating herself while the former Luxembourg premier held her by the arm, shook his head and raised with his palm in an apparent effort to calm her down before the Dutch prime arrived to interrupt them.
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But sources said she was preparing to bring back the vote to the Commons next week if they had continued their hardline stance.
But she added: "The EU is clear, as I am, that if we are going to leave with a deal, this is it".
The backstop would see the return of a hard border in Northern Ireland, avoided by the United Kingdom remaining under European Union customs rules, if no trade agreement is struck with the European Union after a Brexit transition period.
May's stand at the summit will boost her image at home temporarily, but has exposed how far away she is in achieving the "legal and political assurances" over the Brexit deal she promised MPs.
The prime minister, who on Wednesday survived a bruising vote of no confidence by Tory MPs, said a package of assurances around the backstop could "change the dynamic" at Westminster.
But Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has said Mrs May's deal is "dead in the water" and that the PM has "utterly failed" to change her "botched deal".
Speaking in Brussels, she said that "if we are going to leave with a deal, this is it", but she and European Union leaders would be "holding talks in coming days to receive further assurances" on the Irish backstop and other aspects of the agreement.
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