Carole Walker is a political analyst who worked as a political news correspondent for the BBC. The opinions in this article belong solely to the author.

(CNN) Michel Barnier, the EU's chief Brexit negotiator, is clearly running low on patience. He has urged the UK to get on with appointing a negotiating team so that the formal Brexit talks can finally start. "I can't negotiate with myself," he said in an interview with various European publications.

However frustrating this waiting period might be for Barnier, he should be prepared for it to last a little longer. Negotiating Britain's departure from the EU was always going to be a fraught and complex process.

But now, following last week's election in the United Kingdom, Prime Minister Theresa May's failure to secure an overall majority means that she now faces a number of new battles to fight at home -- before she can even think about dealing with the likes of Barnier and his colleagues in Brussels.

May called the election saying she needed her own strong mandate to deal with other EU leaders. Her disastrous campaign has left her severely weakened, lacking authority at home and abroad. She was described over the weekend by the former Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne as a "dead woman walking."

Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and other leading Brexiteers are insisting there can be no "backsliding" from the government's original Brexit objectives.

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