Supporters of the campaign to leave the European Union, one draped in Britain’s Union Jack, a day after Britain voted to break out of the EU, in Westminster, central London, June 24, 2016.ADAM FERGUSON/The New York Times
Britain's victorious Brexiteers woke up on Friday with a hideous hangover and a sudden realization of the scale of what they had done.
Sterling plunged against the dollar and billions have been lost on the London Stock Exchange. The Prime Minister has resigned; banks in the City of London are dusting off their "plan B" strategies of moving euro and bond traders to Frankfurt and Paris.
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Boris Johnson, the former London mayor and man tipped to lead a Brexit Tory government finds himself in the role of unreliable husband who wakes up on the sofa to find his wife and kids gone, nothing in the fridge and a pile of unpaid bills on the doormat.
Instead of cheering and weeping around Britain, there is an odd silence. Clearing its collective throat, the European Union has asked the British government to respond to the plebiscite. As far as Brussels is concerned, Britain is now effectively out of the European Union. All that is needed is process. Martin Schulz, leader of the European Parliament, and European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker both called for immediate notification under Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, the trigger that kick-starts the two-year exit talks.
An ashen-faced Mr. Johnson on Friday showed no sign of wanting to do the deed. Michael Gove, the Justice Minister and leading cabinet Brexiteer, only mutters about "informal negotiations." However, no one in Brussels is in the mood for polite chit chat with Britain. The Tories pleaded with Mr. Cameron to stay on and help steer the British ship into a safe non-EU harbour. But the Prime Minister will be gone by October and his replacement will be left cradling the Brexit baby.
Mr. Cameron, who disgracefully pandered to the extremists who wanted the EU referendum, has now called their bluff. Whoever picks up the baton must now deliver on the promise of good access to the EU single market if Britain is not to suffer serious economic harm. It must be a deal that is better than EU membership and therefore does not expose the United Kingdom to large financial cost (as Norway has suffered) or the obligation to join the Schengen open borders treaty (as Switzerland has done). It is an impossibly high hurdle. No EU member state (and all 27 must agree) will agree to give Britain the free ride the Brexiteers promised. No wonder Mr. Johnson and Mr. Gove look frightened. Only Nigel Farage wants to fire the gun immediately, but the UK Independence Party leader has fallen out badly with the Tory Brexiteers over UKIP's referendum campaign: advertising that was viciously xenophobic and, of course, very successful in winning over voters. He will be sidelined.
The burden of delivering on a reckless promise is only one problem facing the Brexit leaders. The other problem is the legal process enshrined in Article 5 0of the Lisbon Treaty.
Only a member state that wishes to leave can pull the trigger; the EU cannot force Britain to start the process but once it gives notice, it operates as a two-year countdown ending in a guillotine. If Britain fails to secure the agreement it wants in two years, its membership of the EU is extinguished and it becomes just another foreign nation. There is a provision to extend the talks but it requires unanimous agreement among the 27 states.
The guillotine would be terrible – no trading arrangement, no travel arrangements, no free access to capital markets. The negotiator who might win such a deal would need wisdom, bravery and ruthless cunning . Instead, we have two former journalists with no experience at high-level diplomacy, wriggling like bait on a hook.
And were it to be done, how would it be done? The treaty stipulates that the notification must happen "in accordance with [Britain's] own constitutional requirements." No one in Britain has a clue what the constitutional requirements are to kick-start something such as this. Can the prime minister just write a letter or must he first seek Parliament's approval? The referendum was only advisory; it has no status in constitutional law. Would Parliament dare to overrule the people's vote?
Members of Parliament are anxious and fearful. In London, the remain majority was huge, in some boroughs reaching 75 per cent. A petition calling for a second vote has attracted more than 2 million signatures. Another, calling for London's mayor to declare the capital an independent state, has attracted 170,000 signatures. Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish Premier, has said Brexit will lead to another Scottish independence referendum. In Northern Ireland, Sinn Fein is calling for a border poll on a united Ireland, a vote that would probably be won, with hordes of Ulster Protestants applying for Irish passports to secure their rights in Europe.
Will the Brexit trigger ever be pulled? There must be a strong likelihood that days will turn into weeks, weeks into months and months into years. As the business of choosing a new Tory leader preoccupies Parliament, the referendum result may lose its pressing urgency.There is nothing that Brussels can do to make it happen.
However, it will always be there; a hideous disfigurement that tarnishes British politics and makes a mockery of its government institutions. Even if Brexit never happens, it will remain a millstone around Britain's neck for generations to come.
Carl Mortished is a Canadian financial journalist based in London.