A United Kingdom without a European Union and an EU without a UK has led to much speculation since the 2016 British referendum vote to escape the political union that was threatening to turn Britain into a province.

The 48 per cent of No voters were appalled by the outcome, believing that what's good for the bureaucracy was good for the UK, and certainly good for them. Since the referendum, No voters hoped that the 52 per cent would turn away from their folly or be thwarted in its pursuit.

Today the 48 per cent - and to a lesser extent the 52 per cent - have had to look what now appears to be an inevitability - and see if they can find a silver lining in the overcast skies that becloud their futures.

One optimistic point for the 52 percenters is the Bank of England's view that a decisive break, or "hard Brexit", as it is called, would be more damaging to Europe than the UK.

Admittedly, that is a not-very-nice negative sum game, that such a disruption in financial services would be bad for all. But still, worse for Europe. So much that resentful continentalists would be best advised not to threaten draconian measures for their own sake.

That is because there is a growing feeling in London's financial centre that the worst-case scenario - that UK financial services deal with Europe on the same basis as they do with everywhere else - would not be nearly as bad as doomsters say.

Backing this, Europe's, chief negotiator Michel Barnier has reportedly warned of financial instability in the euro zone if the UK does not get to maintain European access to UK financial services.

A second silver lining appeared from the fretful concerns beclouding British universities, whose denizens have been strongly anti-Brexit. Here there have been two shifts. One is the realisation that non-EU students pay more than EU ones, and so financially, higher education may well benefit from Brexit if fewer EU students apply.

That is, of course, if open access to universities is maintained, which remains uncertain. The other point is that European research funding may have skewed collaboration away from the best US, Canadian, Australian and East Asian universities and towards lower-ranked European ones.

Yet another point is the awareness that the failure to reach agreement with Europe, which is a real possibility, while not ideal, would be acceptable in the short-term and positive in the long run.

So much for positive outcomes. For many supporters of the European project, the EU has entered uncharted territory. Although most experts consider a complete dissolution of the EU unlikely, the future shape and character of the bloc is being increasingly questioned.

In light of the serious internal and external challenges currently facing the EU, especially Brexit, advocates worry that for the first time in the EU's history, at least some aspects of integration may be stopped or reversed.

Others contend that crises facing the EU are all to the good, inducing correctives eventually making the bloc better than it is today. Many EU leaders say it cannot be "business as usual", especially given the extent of public dissatisfaction, both with the EU itself and with Europe's generally pro-EU political establishment.

Days after the referendum, the leaders of the 27 other member states announced they were launching a "political reflection" to consider further EU reforms and how best to tackle the key security and economic challenges facing the EU. Germany, France, and Italy are spearheading this effort and likely will be influential in determining the EU's future direction.

But who knows? It seems to have that all have settled into "muddling through" stance, an attitude that has underpinned British foreign policy for centuries. The EU would largely continue to function as before, without major treaty changes or decision making reforms, and yet still find some greater degree of common ground.

But the process, inconclusive as it was, did give rise to the credible notion that a tighter more united EU would be the likely result of Brexit and a Grexit if it should ever come about, leaving a smaller EU, but one more closely aligned on the need for political and economic integration.

But this cheerful outcome for a more deeply united EU conflicts with internal bureaucratic desires for a wider, more inclusive Europe as one makes the other increasingly unlikely.

In the 1990s and 2000s, the EU engaged in efforts to reform its institutions, simplify often cumbersome processes, thus allowing a bigger EU to function effectively. These efforts culminated in Lisbon Treaty in 2009, which sought to enhance the EU's global role and increase democratic accountability.

But EU decision making remains complex, lacks transparency, and is too slow and unwieldy. This is said to be the result of differences in viewpoints among so many countries that decisions take time in what remains a largely consensus-based institution.

But now, with streams of male Muslims of military age pouring over EU borders and growingly restive populist parties in ascendency, this expansionist project has been put on the back burner despite its bureaucratic popularity.

While the EU maintains that the enlargement door remains open to any European country that fulfills the political and economic criteria for membership, that is more sop for bureaucrats than a popular policy, particularly when Muslim countries, such as Turkey, or the poorer ones like Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, drift away from those norms.

Yet eurosceptic parties continue to pose challenges to the EU establishment parties in a number of countries and have put pressure on mainstream leaders to embrace some of their positions such as curtailing EU integration or tightening immigration policies.

Should eurosceptic parties gain enough support to enter or even lead their national governments, they could stop or reverse European integration. While the last presidential election in France defeated eurosceptic Marine Le Pen's anti-EU National Front, it still gained more of the popular support than it had.