Many in U.K. fear ‘grisly’ Brexit process

LONDON — When Theresa May appears on stage at the Conservative Party’s annual meeting this week, it will take all her determination to drown out the ticking of an invisible clock.

One hundred and eighty days stand between Britain and an uncontrolled exit from the European Union. Then it will be 179, 178. …

After two years of negotiation, Britain has reached a moment of consequence for the process known as Brexit. The insulating layer of time that had protected the country from a potentially failed divorce from the bloc is thinning. Soon, it will be gone, with the threat of major new trade restrictions closing in.

What this could mean for ordinary Britons has been seeping into the newspapers, sometimes in leaks from secret government reports: Northern Ireland has only one energy link to the mainland, so a no-deal Brexit could lead to rolling blackouts and steep price rises; and the energy system could collapse, forcing the military to redeploy generators from Afghanistan to the Irish Sea.

With an eye toward the March 29 deadline, the government has appointed a minister to guarantee food supplies. Pharmaceutical companies are planning a six-week stockpile of lifesaving medications like insulin and considering flying planeloads of medicine into the country until imports resume. That is if planes can still land in Britain — something thrown into doubt after the government admitted that aircraft could, in theory, be grounded by a sudden exit.

In many ways, the country is in the same position it was on the morning after the 2016 referendum: without a clear plan.

On Friday, Boris Johnson, the former foreign minister and standard-bearer for the hardBrexit faction, proposed starting over with a tougher negotiating approach, hinting that he might try to topple May in the coming weeks. Supporters of a so-called soft-Brexit would keep Britain closely tied to European economic rules and standards. The hard-Brexit camp backs the opposite approach: quitting Europe’s customs union and single market and freeing Britain to draw up its own trade rules.

Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, rallied his own troops in Liverpool last week and all but promised that Parliament would vote down any deal that May could strike.

In the meantime, there is a strange calm, as if the country is waiting to see if a storm will make landfall.

“We’re just rolling toward the cliff, and nobody out there is going to stop it,” said Bill Wolsey, who owns a chain of hotels, pubs and restaurants based in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

An abrupt Brexit, he said, would increase the cost of supplies and electricity in Northern Ireland by 20 percent and could curtail the flow of tourists from Europe, who are the backbone of his business.

“It’s a strange time,” he said. “How many times have we heard this attitude through history — that it will all be sorted — and then nothing’s sorted? I personally think nothing will be sorted.”