That is the trouble with Britain versus the EU: however much both sides want to behave like grown-ups, the arguments over withdrawal soon turn into squabbles. The British media—pro- and anti-EU—is of course quick to exacerbate any discord. Who wants to read or write about customs practices when one can raise the possibility of war?

Theresa May’s letter to Donald Tusk initiating Article 50 stressed that Britain’s “decision was no rejection of the values we share as fellow Europeans” and that “we want to remain committed partners and allies to our friends across the continent.” But Brussels and the Remain press quickly interpreted her repeated emphasis on the importance of cooperation to combat terrorism as aggression. Senior Brussels figures told the Guardian that May had made a “blatant threat” and was treating European lives as “a bargaining chip.” It was as if the prime minister had threatened to release British terrorists and bus them into European capitals.

The EU’s response to Theresa May’s opening Brexit salvo caused an even sillier row over Gibraltar, a small peninsula bordering Spain that has been a British sovereign territory since 1713. Gibraltar is a grotty place: Byron called it “the dirtiest most detestable spot in existence.” Today, it is a haven for tax dodgers and gambling companies, and not much else. Nevertheless, Spain has always resented Britain’s control of “the Rock”—and the EU latched onto that grievance in its so-called “draft guidelines,” the union’s first published response to Brexit. “No agreement between the EU and the United Kingdom may apply to the territory of Gibraltar without the agreement between the Kingdom of Spain and the United Kingdom,” declared Brussels. Or, as a EU official told the press, “The union will stick up for its members and that means Spain now.”

The British tabloids and some Tories were quick to hit the jingo button in response. The Sun, diplomatic as ever, produced a pullout centerfold poster: “Hands Off Our Rock.” The former Conservative Party leader Michael Howard was wheeled onto Sunday television, where he suggested that Theresa May would be willing to go to war to protect Gibraltar, just as Margaret Thatcher had done for the Falklands.

It was all laughably over the top. Nevertheless, the fallout over Gibraltar proved just how thorny the process of withdrawing from the EU will be. Every minor dispute could be blown into a casus belli. Neither side wants to fight, of course, but the way the word “war” quickly entered the political debate served as a reminder that, for all its problems, the EU has helped guarantee peace since the Second World War.

Any common ground between Brexit Britain and the EU looks vanishingly small. On the Brexit side, everybody agrees that May must be willing to walk away from the negotiating table if the EU proves too obstreperous. That would mean falling back on WTO rules and tariffs for the trade of goods between Europe and Britain—and hoping for the best on the transfer of services, immigration and the manifold issues of legal jurisdiction. Economists and futurologists disagree wildly on what the “WTO option” could mean for Britain, but it seems likely to cause market jitters in the short term.

On the EU side, the twenty-seven other member countries seem resolved to show unity against Britain’s withdrawal. No senior European representatives will explicitly say they want to punish Britain pour decourager les autres. That has to be the EU position, however. The EU, still suffering its own political and economic crisis as a result of the 2008 crash, simply cannot afford to let Britain leave on good terms. To do so would undermine what it calls the “integrity of the union.” In order to protect what they see as Europe’s long-term interest, plenty of Brussels mandarins would be willing to accept the economic pain of freezing Britain out.

According to a detailed report by the Centre for European Reform, there are

three possible outcomes of the Brexit talks: a separation agreement plus an accord on future relations including an FTA; a separation agreement but no deal on future relations, so that Britain has to rely on WTO rules; and neither a separation agreement nor a deal on future relations, so that Britain faces legal chaos and has to rely on WTO rules.

Paralyzing legal complexity seems inevitable. In July, the government put forward its Great Repeal Bill, to assert the supremacy of British law over European law in the future. The bill proposes to end the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice in the United Kingdom, and to transfer all EU law into the UK legal system, so that the government can then “amend, repeal and improve” each law as is necessary. If that sounds simple, it shouldn’t: the relationship between EU law and British law is deeply confused and confusing. It is the source of much of the resentment towards EU, but unpicking what law applies where will be, as a report by the House of Commons concluded, “one of the largest legislative projects ever undertaken in the UK.” Lawyers will have a field day, and that means taxpayers will have to pay. It’s also unclear how the Repeal Bill can be passed through the Commons while the politics of Brexit are so up in the air.

At present, with all eyes on May, the growing consensus, even among some Leave supporters, is that chaos beckons. The Leave campaign promised a bonfire of EU “red tape”—to destroy those continental bureaucratic impediments long blamed holding Britain back. Now, however, businesses are dreading the “bureaucracy bombshell” Brexit is meant to bring.

MAY IS a much weaker figure than she was before the election. She and her team chose to interpret Brexit not just as a vote against Brussels, but as an opportunity to move politics away from the globalism of former prime ministers Tony Blair and David Cameron. Earlier this year, May appeared to be carving out a new “third way”—not between Left and Right, but between nationalism and internationalism; between the ugly chauvinism of Donald Trump or Marine Le Pen, and the economic liberalism that has dominated Tory politics for most May’s career. May herself was not afraid to stand up for patriotism: she got a cold reception from financial and political elites when she told them, repeatedly, “If believe you’re a citizen of the world, you’re a citizen of nowhere.” But her advisers stressed that she wanted to challenge free-market capitalism to save itself. She talked of “rebalancing the economy” to better serve the north of England, which distressed let-the-market-rip Brexiteers. Mayism then could be seen as an Anglican version of America First, or Brexit as Trumpism lite. The prime minister’s manifesto included proposals to put workers on company boards and levy on companies who hired foreign workers.

This political positioning seemed brilliant: the Tories would go along with her gestures to the Left, it was thought, because the alternative was the beardy socialist Corbyn, and her economic protectionism would attract millions of disgruntled voters in the old Labour heartlands. But then it failed, and May’s vision of Brexit suddenly looked out of touch. All of May’s leftward nods on the economy couldn’t make the Tories look as if they really cared about those “left behind” by globalization. It’s worth remembering that David Cameron tried and failed to brand himself a “Red Tory,” because nobody believed him either. Any hopes that Brexit could be the vehicle through which Britain might push back against the global populist surge have been dashed. The antipolitics momentum is now entirely with Jeremy Corbyn and the hard Left.

Before June 8, May’s real ace card against Europe was Donald Trump. It was well known that Trump considered Brexit to be “beautiful, beautiful, beautiful,” and that he disliked the EU, which he regards as little more than a protection racket for German manufacturing. After reaching the White House, Trump moved quickly to scrap the Trans-Atlantic Trade Partnership, which President Obama had reached with Europe. Obama had said that under Brexit, Britain would be “in the back of the queue” in any future trade deals with the world’s biggest economy. Trump said Britain would be first, and told the London Times that he wanted to strike a free-trade agreement “very quickly.” As Britain began the complicated and expensive process of disentangling itself from the European Union, America’s new commander in chief seemed to be the answer to every Brexiteer’s prayers. Trump would not only support Britain; it was hoped that he would make life harder for Germany and the EU, and therefore weaken their positions in Brexit talks.

May seized on this apparent diplomatic opportunity. While the rest of the world was still gawping at the unreality of a Trump presidency, she became the first world leader to meet him in the White House. She even let him hold her hand, much to the disgust of the British left, which held protests in Westminster and screamed “Theresa the appeaser!”

May further obtained Trump’s reassurances that he fully supported NATO, which she hoped would show anxious Europeans that, in the new postliberal West, she could play the part of Thatcher to Trump’s Reagan. Trump, for his part, reiterated that Brexit was “a wonderful thing.” And again in July, Trump promised Liam Fox, the international trade secretary, a “major trade deal” which would be “very big & exciting.”