Nigel Farage, the leader of the U.K. Independence Party, spent Friday morning distancing himself from the "Leave" campaign's promise that Britain's EU funds would be redirected to the National Health Service; and Tory European Parliament member Daniel Hannan admitted that renegotiating Britain's relationship with the EU wouldn't actually decrease immigration. [...]
The United Kingdom's withdrawal from the EU can't happen until the country sends the EU an "Article 50 notification," a formal announcement that it intends to withdraw. That notification starts a two-year countdown during which Britain and Europe negotiate the terms of their separation. At the end of two years, regardless of the state of those negotiations, Britain's out.
So who sends the notification, and when? Neither the EU charter nor the Brexit referendum specifies. (The vote was nonbinding, although both sides assured voters their decision would be implemented.) Prime Minister David Cameron could plausibly have done it on Friday, but he didn't. Such a step, he said, should be taken by his successor (probably Johnson). [...]
Perhaps Johnson-or pro-"Remain" Tory MP Theresa May, or whoever else succeeds Cameron-will make a point of delivering the notification on his or her first day in office. And if the "Leave" crowd is still riding high, that's what will happen. But that doesn't seem to be the way things are going-which is why, even after a referendum that has paused global markets and unseated a prime minister, there's a strong chance that there will never be a Brexit.
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