“As of this evening, I see no way back from the Brexit vote. This is no time for wishful thinking, but rather to grasp reality” – Angela Merkel

The EU Observer reports today:

Five days after the UK voted to leave the EU, the bloc’s leaders decided at a meeting in Brussels on Tuesday (28 June) to wait before starting the legal process for Brexit, but they insisted there was no alternative to Brexit. (…)

As one official from a member state put it, the message to British officials was: “You have a referendum, you deal with it.”

That means Britain will have to trigger Article 50 before any discussion about its future relationship with the EU can start. Cameron, who will resign after the summer, said it would be for the next British government to decide.

“As of this evening, I see no way back from the Brexit vote,” German chancellor Angela Merkel told journalists. “This is no time for wishful thinking, but rather to grasp reality.”

Meanwhile, the heads of the governments of the other 27 EU member states are meeting today for the first time without their UK counterpart, David Cameron, to discuss the way ahead.