BRUSSELS—European Union nations urged Britain on Friday to quickly exit the bloc and end uncertainty about the future, as Prime Minister David Cameron said he would leave the departure negotiations to his successor, possibly until sometime in October.

“We cannot afford to wait until the Conservative Party will find a new leader,” said Slovak Foreign Minister Miroslav Lajcak, whose country takes over the EU’s presidency next week and will have to supervise preparations for Britain’s departure.

Britain has voted to leave the European Union (52-48 vote)

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Cameron’s fellow Conservative and Britain’s most prominent “leave” campaigner, Boris Johnson, said early Friday that “it is vital to stress that there is now no need for haste.”

But Dutch Foreign Minister Bert Koenders, who was at an EU meeting in Luxembourg Friday to prepare next week’s summit, said: “You can’t have your cake and eat it.”

“There is a clear plea from the majority of member states to speed this process up,” he added.

Britain’s vote to leave plunged the EU into a new existential crisis as it struggles to recover from economic woes, public disenchantment with Brussels-imposed austerity policies in debt-stricken Greece and Europe’s inability to manage the refugee emergency.

The bitterly divisive referendum campaign toppled the government Friday, sent global markets plunging and shattered the stability of a project in continental unity designed half a century ago to prevent World War III.

Still reeling from the U.K. decision, and with the pound losing value while markets shook, other top EU officials tried to put on a brave face despite having no clear idea how to negotiate the unprecedented departure of a member state.

They also warned Britain that it would remain a member, with all the obligations that entails, until the talks on leaving are over, which could mean more than two years longer.

The heads of the EU’s main institutions said in a statement that they want Britain to act on the vote “as soon as possible, however painful that process may be. Any delay would unnecessarily prolong uncertainty.”

This insistence on a “hard exit” is aimed at discouraging other countries from wanting to leave the bloc in the belief that they might be able to negotiate a comfortable partnership from the outside.

Many European officials fear the U.K. vote will play into the hands of the far right and left and fuel calls for referendums in other countries.

The possibility to leave exists in the EU’s rule book, but it’s never been used before.

Whatever decisions are taken, the coming weeks and months will be frantic and uncertain, according to analysts.

U.K’s decision launches a years-long process to renegotiate trade, business and political links between the United Kingdom and what would become a 27-nation bloc, an unprecedented divorce that could take decades to complete.

“The dawn is breaking on an independent United Kingdom,” said Nigel Farage, leader of the U.K. Independence Party. “Let June 23 go down in our history as our independence day!”

The electoral commission said 52 per cent of voters opted to leave the EU. Turnout was high: 72 per cent of the more than 46 million registered voters cast ballots.

The Canadian dollar fell more than a cent against against the U.S. greenback Friday morning. The British pound was down about 5.5 per cent against the loonie.

Bank of England Governor Mark Carney sought to reassure the markets.

“We are well prepared for this,” Carney said. “The Treasury and the Bank of England have engaged in extensive contingency planning. ... We have taken all the necessary steps to prepare for today’s events.”

But Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said a https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2016/06/24/scottish-leaders-says-new-referendum-on-split-from-uk-very-likely.html second Scottish referendum END on independence from the United Kingdom “has to be on the table.” Scotland voted in 2014 to remain a part of the U.K. but leaders said afterward that was conditional on Britain remaining in the EU.

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Already, far-right leaders in France and the Netherlands were calling for a similar anti-EU vote.

The referendum showed Britain to be a sharply divided nation: Strong pro-EU votes in the economic and cultural powerhouse of London and semi-autonomous Scotland were countered by sweeping anti-Establishment sentiment for an exit across the rest of England, from southern seaside towns to rust-belt former industrial powerhouses in the north.

“It’s a vindication of 1,000 years of British democracy,” commuter Jonathan Campbell James declared at the train station in Richmond, southwest London. “From Magna Carta all the way through to now we’ve had a slow evolution of democracy, and this vote has vindicated the maturity and depth of the democracy in our country.”

Others expressed anger and frustration. Olivia Sangster-Bullers, 24, called the result “absolutely disgusting.”

“Good luck to all of us, I say, especially those trying to build a future with our children,” she said.

Reaction to Brexit vote

“A lot of people’s grievances are coming out and we have got to start listening to them,” said deputy Labour Party leader John McDonnell.

Indeed, the vote constituted a rebellion against the political, economic and social Establishment. All manner of groups — CEOs, scientists, soldiers — had written open letters warning of the consequences of an exit. Farage called the result “a victory for ordinary people against the big banks, big business and big politics.”

Donald Trump praised the decision during a visit to one of his golf courses in Scotland, saying Britons “took back their country. It’s a great thing.” He likened the vote to the U.S. sentiment that has propelled him to the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, saying people in the United States and the United Kingdom are angry about similar things.

“People are angry all over the world,” he said.

Cameron’s efforts to find a slogan to counter the “leave” campaign’s emotive “take back control” settled on “Brits don’t quit.” But the appeal to a Churchillian bulldog spirit and stoicism proved too little, too late.

The slaying of pro-Europe lawmaker Jo Cox a week before the vote brought a shocked pause to both campaigns and appeared to shift momentum away from the “leave” camp. While it isn’t clear whether her killer was influenced by the EU debate, her death aroused fears that the referendum had stirred demons it would be difficult to subdue.

Exiting the EU involves taking the unprecedented step of invoking Article 50 of the EU’s governing treaty. While Greenland left an earlier, more limited version of the bloc in 1985, no country has ever invoked Article 50, so there is no roadmap for how the process will work.

Authorities ranging from the International Monetary Fund to the U.S. Federal Reserve and the Bank of England have warned that a British exit will reverberate through a world economy that is only slowly recovering from the global economic crisis. The European Union is the world’s biggest economy and the U.K.’s most important trading partner, accounting for 45 per cent of exports and 53 per cent of imports.

In addition, the complex nature of Britain’s integration with the EU means that breaking up will be hard to do. The negotiations will go far beyond tariffs, including issues such as cross-border security, foreign policy co-operation and a common fisheries policy.

It will also affect the ability of professionals such as investment managers, accountants and lawyers to work in the EU, threatening London’s position as one of the world’s pre-eminent financial centres. The U.K. hosts more headquarters of non-EU firms than Germany, France, Switzerland and the Netherlands put together.

“We believe this outcome has serious implications for the City and many of our clients’ businesses with exposure to the U.K. and the EU,” said Malcolm Sweeting, senior partner of law firm Clifford Chance. “We are working alongside our clients to help them as they anticipate, plan for and manage the challenges the coming political and trade negotiations will bring.”

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