Hard Brexit looms as May offers too little, too late: China Daily editorial

In June 2016 when the British voted to seek a divorce from the European Union, few in the country seemed to understand all the implications of such a transformative move. Which is why there have been growing calls for a second referendum.

The short span of time before Brexit was put to the vote — held about a year after former prime minister David Cameron gave the green light to a referendum in 2015 — means many voters were driven by impulse and emotion, rather than reason, and there was little weighing of the pros and cons of this seismic event.

Ensuring people were well-informed would have been the best defense against them acting in haste and repenting soon after, but then the Brexit vote was never about what was good for the country, but rather a means to try and keep the Conservative Party intact and in power. Brexit has simply picked up a lot of baggage along the way.

The country is about to pay a heavy price for Cameron's gamble, as members of Parliament on Tuesday overwhelmingly rejected his successor Theresa May's deal to leave the EU. It was the biggest parliamentary defeat for a government in modern British political history, but it also means the country faces the immediate risk of a "no deal" Brexit.

Such a situation could be catastrophic, because it will disrupt trade, slow down the British economy and wreak havoc on the financial markets. The Treasury has predicted a "hard" Brexit would cause GDP to fall by up to 9.5 percent compared with staying in the EU.

To avoid this worst-case scenario, May has promised to hold more discussions with MPs to identify ideas that "have sufficient support" before returning to the parliament with a new proposal on Monday.

But that appears to be mission impossible. It took May nearly two years to craft her EU withdrawal agreement, which she described as "the best deal for Britain", and indeed the only deal. Actually, she had already delayed the parliamentary vote, initially scheduled for Dec 11, fearing defeat. If the month she spent since then trying to woo support for her hard-won deal has proved futile, there will be few who will back her to succeed with a second try within just a few days.

And the door for her to seek "fundamental change" to the deal so that it could get parliamentary approval has basically been shut by the EU. European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker called the existing deal "the only way to ensure an orderly withdrawal".

The clock is ticking ever closer to the March 29 deadline, and each passing day accentuates belief a hard Brexit will be the reality. What that will entail no one really knows. So let us join French President Emmanuel Macron in wishing Britain and its people "good luck", and hope the same for the rest of us, since Brexit will have far-reaching effects.