Divided UK, inconclusive election could put brakes on Brexit

LONDON -- Lucy Harris thinks Britain's decision to leave the European Union is a dream come true. Nick Hopkinson thinks it's a nightmare.

The two Britons -- a "leave" supporter and a "remainer" -- represent the great divide in a country that stepped into the unknown just over a year ago, when British voters decided by 52 percent to 48 percent to end more than four decades of EU membership.

They also are as uncertain as the rest of the country about what Brexit will look like and even when it will happen. Since the shock referendum result, work on negotiating the divorce from the EU has slowed to a crawl as the scale and complexity of the challenge become clearer.

Harris, founder of the pro-Brexit group Leavers of London, said she is hopeful rather than confident Britain will cut its ties with the EU.

"If we haven't finalized it, then anything's still up for grabs," she said. "Everything is still to play for."

The front pages of Britain's newspapers report June 25, 2016, on the EU referendum result, London. Since the June 8 British election, there has been a disunited British government, and an increasingly impatient EU. Officials of the bloc have slammed British proposals so far as vague and inadequate. There's also a fight looming over the multibillion-euro bill Britain must pay to meet previous commitments it made as an EU member. British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson blustered recently that the bloc could "go whistle" if it thought Britain would settle a big exit tab. EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier replied: "I am mot hearing any whistling. Just the clock ticking." (AP Photo/Tim Ireland, file)

She's not the only Brexiteer, as those who support leaving the EU are called, to be concerned. After an election last month clipped the wings of Britain's Conservative government, remainers are gaining in confidence.

"Since the general election, I've been more optimistic that at least we're headed toward soft Brexit, and hopefully we can reverse Brexit altogether," said Hopkinson, chairman of pro-EU group London4Europe. "Obviously the government is toughing it out, showing a brave face. But I think its brittle attitude toward Brexit will break and snap."

Many on both sides of the divide had assumed the picture would be clearer by now. But the road to Brexit has not run smoothly.

First, the British government lost a Supreme Court battle over whether a vote in Parliament was needed to begin the Brexit process.

Once the vote was held, and won, Prime Minister Theresa May's Conservative government officially triggered the two-year countdown to exit, starting a race to untangle four decades of intertwined laws and regulations by March 2019.

May then called an early election in a bid to strengthen her hand in EU negotiations.

Instead, voters stripped May's Conservatives of their parliamentary majority, denting May's authority and her ability to hold together a party split between its pro-and anti-EU wings.

Since the June 8 election, government ministers have been at war, providing the media with a string of disparaging, anonymously sourced stories about each other. Much of the sniping has targeted Treasury chief Philip Hammond, the most senior minister in favor of a compromise "soft Brexit" to cushion the economic shock of leaving the bloc.

The result is a disunited British government and an increasingly impatient EU.

EU officials have slammed British proposals so far as vague and inadequate. The first substantive round of divorce talks in Brussels last week failed to produce a breakthrough, as the EU's chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, said Britain must clarify its positions in key areas.

Barnier said "fundamental" differences remain on one of the biggest issues -- the status of 3 million EU citizens living in Britain and 1 million U.K. nationals who reside in other European countries. A British proposal to grant permanent residency to Europeans in the U.K. was dismissed by the European Parliament as insufficient and burdensome.

There's also a fight looming over the multibillion-euro bill that Britain must pay to meet previous commitments it made as an EU member. British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson recently asserted the bloc could "go whistle" if it thought Britain would settle a big exit tab.

"I am not hearing any whistling. Just the clock ticking," Barnier replied.

EU officials insist there can be no discussion of a future trade deal with Britain until "sufficient progress" has been made on citizens' rights, the exit bill and the status of the Irish border.

"We don't seem to be much further on now than we were just after the referendum," said Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London. "I'm not sure anybody knows just how this is going to go. I'm not sure the government has got its negotiating goals sorted. I'm not sure the EU really knows what (Britain's goals) are either.

"I think we are going to find it very, very hard to meet this two-year deadline before we crash out."

The prospect of tumbling out of the bloc -- with its frictionless single market in goods and services -- and into a world of tariffs and trade barriers has given Britain's economy the jitters. The pound has lost more than 10 percent of its value against the dollar in the last year, economic growth has slowed and manufacturing output has begun to fall.

Employers' organization the Confederation of British Industry says the uncertainty is threatening jobs. The group says to ease the pain, Britain should remain in the EU's single market and customs union during a transitional period after Brexit.

That idea has support from many lawmakers, both Conservative and Labour, but could bring the wrath of pro-Brexit Conservatives down on the already shaky May government. That could trigger a party leadership challenge or even a new election -- and more delays and chaos.

In the meantime, there is little sign the country has heeded May's repeated calls to unite. A post-referendum spike in hate crimes against Europeans and others has subsided, but across the country families have fought and friendships have been strained over Brexit.

"It has created divisions that just weren't there," said Hopkinson, who calls the forces unleashed by Brexit a "nightmare."

On that, he and Harris agree. Harris set up Leavers of London as a support group after finding her views out of synch with many others in her 20-something age group.

"I was fed up with being called a xenophobe," she said. "You start this conversation and it gets really bad very quickly."

She strongly believes Britain will be better off outside the EU. But, she predicts: "We're in for a bumpy ride, both sides."