For Britain and Europe, outlook still uncertain

Despite big news in the past week - British Prime Minister Theresa May's hardly surprising resignation announcement on Friday and the landscape-changing European Parliament election results on Sunday - the road ahead remains far from clear.

The instant dismissal of May's repackaging of her Brexit terms, rejected three times previously, meant that her departure was a case of when, not if.

As expected in the European election, which ended on Sunday, the Conservatives did not fare well. Their 9.1 percent of the vote was the party's worst electoral showing since 1832, but the opposition Labour Party didn't do much better, with 14.1 percent.

Nigel Farage's recently established Brexit Party grabbed headlines, going from no seats to 29, with 31.6 percent of the vote. But that "zero to hero" transformation might pale when considering that in the 2014 European elections, the biggest winner was Farage's previous party, the United Kingdom Independence Party, with 24 seats. Its 2014 success received headlines almost identical to those focusing on the Brexit Party five years later.

This time, having lost its leader and its ideological position to newcomers, the United Kingdom Independence Party lost all its seats. The Brexit Party's simple message - Brexit - was clear, and voters loved it.

So far, Farage's efforts have brought down two Conservative prime ministers, David Cameron and May.

It was a great night for Remainers as well. Explicitly anti-Brexit parties, led by the Liberal Democrats and supported by the likes of the Green Party and the Scottish National Party, did very well. The Liberal Democrats finished with just over 20 percent of the vote and 15 seats, and the Greens managed to get 12.1 percent and seven seats.

Together, the assorted anti-Brexit parties polled 40.4 percent, ahead of the Brexit Party and United Kingdom Independence Party, with a combined 34.9 percent.

After years of a two-party dominated system, Sunday saw the British political landscape split into two polar opposites by Brexit, with the Brexit Party on one side and a huddle of smaller, anti-Brexit parties on the other. In the middle are the weakened Conservatives and Labour.

Liz Truss, a Conservative member of Parliament, said her party's "terrible" results were a direct result of having failed to deliver Brexit, and said the UK must leave the EU at the end of October, with or without a deal.

Sam Gyimah, a fellow Tory member of Parliament, said, "We should be careful not to interpret this as a mandate for no deal."

The prospect of Conservative internal tensions increasing to near the breaking point meant that many supporters of Labour and its leader, Jeremy Corbyn, had been dreaming of the possibility of a government collapse and general election before the year's end.

But that dream ended as Sunday's results demonstrated the full extent of public dissatisfaction with Corbyn's own evasive Brexit stance.

Anti-Brexit Labour MP David Lammy did not hold back, saying the party should be "ashamed" of its "woeful" campaign, which had contributed to the Brexit Party's success.

Political analyst Sir John Curtice said it was hard to call a real winner and warned that an unscheduled general election may well be the most likely outcome.

"The crucial message to take away from these elections is that we are basically evenly divided between the two courses open to us, leaving without a deal and having a second referendum, and we are deeply polarized between these two options," he said.

"If the Conservatives try to fight an election before they have delivered Brexit, then lots of people are still going to be reluctant to vote for it.

"On the other hand, because of the talk about no deal and because if a government tries to pursue no deal it is likely to be brought down, the risks of an accidental general election have gone up."