British prime minister Theresa May officially triggered Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty on Wednesday, setting into motion a historic chain of events that will formally take the UK out of the European Union.
The evening before, Mrs May signed a letter to Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council. The letter was delivered at 12:30pm on Wednesday by Tim Barrow, the British ambassador to the EU, marking the formal initiation of the Brexit process.
Mr Tusk will present the EU's formal response to Mrs May's letter by Friday.
In a statement to the House of Commons on Wednesday afternoon, the British prime minister said that the triggering of Article 50 was also "the moment for the country to come together." It was a particularly telling remark, given that, only the previous day, the Scottish parliament had voted in favour of holding a second referendum to seek independence from the UK.
Scotland voted against Brexit in the countrywide referendum held last June, and Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish first minister who had met with Mrs May in Edinburgh on Monday, has frequently said that Brexit will ruin Scotland's economy.
With Tuesday's vote in the Scottish parliament behind her, Ms Sturgeon will now ask the British government for permission to conduct the referendum. She expected that permission to be granted, she said.
"Today's vote must now be respected," she said "This is, first and foremost, about giving the people of Scotland a choice on this country's future."
Even without the potential complications of a breakaway Scotland, the process initiated by Article 50 is already complex enough.
The British government will now appoint negotiators to begin discussions with the EU over the terms of Brexit: the nitty-gritty of customs and tariffs, for example, or the status of citizens of one territory living in the other.
Article 50 stipulates a two-year time frame for such negotiations, said Tim Oliver, a political scientist at the London School of Economics, and that time frame can only be extended by the agreement of all 27 of the EU's remaining member states.
"There is talk of some form of transition period beyond the two years, but this needs to be agreed and will likely have a time limit on it," Dr Oliver told The National. "If no agreement is reached within the two years, then the UK leaves without an agreement."
Through this two-year schedule, the UK continues to be a full member of the EU.
The forthcoming negotiations are already being described as the most complex for Britain since the end of the Second World War. No member state has ever left the EU before, so every square inch of the negotiations will be uncharted terrain.
First, the 27 member states of the EU will meet to finalise their expectations of the Brexit process, which will then be conveyed to Michel Barnier, the EU's chief negotiator and a former French foreign minister.
On the British side, the negotiations will be conducted by David Davis, the newly appointed secretary of state for exiting the EU.
Mrs May has already said that the UK wants a free trade deal with Europe that would offer the "greatest possible access" to its market. But she also wants the UK to be in sole control of its borders and to remove her country from the purview of the European Court of Justice.
The UK's expectations have not gone down well with European politicians, who have accused Mrs May of wanting all the benefits of EU membership without shouldering any of its responsibilities.
"Cherry picking is not an option," Mr Barnier warned last December.
In January, Tomas Prouza, the Czech Republic's state secretary for European affairs tweeted a similar sentiment. "[The] UK's plan seems a bit ambitious — trade as free as possible, full control on immigration — where is the give for all the take?"
Time may be in short supply as well. Although Article 50 accords two years to the process, in reality there may only be 18 months at hand, given that the EU will take several weeks at the beginning to set down its guidelines and then several weeks more at the end to ratify any deal that is struck.
Once a deal is achieved, Mrs May has to bring it back to the British parliament for it to be approved. The vote in parliament "will be a take-it-or-leave-it vote, meaning either the House of Commons votes for the deal negotiated, or if it rejects the deal the UK leaves without a deal," Dr Oliver said. "Some in the House of Commons are angry at this, stating it gives them no options. But [the government] has resisted attempts by parliament to control the negotiations in any way."
That parliamentary vote is significant, because it spells out not only the UK's future relationship with the EU but even the future of Mrs May and of British politics.
Anand Menon, a professor of European politics at King's College in London, thought that parliament's rejection of the deal will upend the British government. "I rather feel that if the deal is voted down in parliament, the PM will have little choice but to resign," he said.
SSubramanian@thenational.ae
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