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In Brexit limbo, UK veers between high anxiety, grim humour

An anti-Brexit demonstrator wears a hat adorned with anti Brexit statements as she protests outside the Palace of Westminster in London, Thursday, Feb. 14, 2019. British lawmakers are holding another series of votes on Brexit legislation Thursday. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)

LONDON — It’s said that history often repeats itself — the first time as tragedy, the second as farce. Many Britons feel they are living through both at the same time as their country navigates its way out of the European Union.

The government awarded a contract to ship in emergency supplies to a company with no ships. It pledged to replace citizens’ burgundy European passports with proudly British blue ones — and gave the contract to a Franco-Dutch company. It promised to forge trade deals with 73 countries by the end of March, but two years later has only a handful in place (including one with the Faroe Islands).

Pretty much everyone in the U.K. agrees that the government’s handling of Brexit has been disastrous. Unfortunately, that’s about the only thing this divided nation can agree on.

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Follow Jill Lawless on Twitter at http://Twitter.com/JillLawless . Follow AP’s full coverage of Brexit at: https://www.apnews.com/Brexit

Jill Lawless, The Associated Press