London-Brussels — Prime Minister Theresa May formally began Britain’s divorce from the EU on Wednesday, declaring there was no turning back and ushering in a tortuous exit process that will test the bloc’s cohesion and pitch her country into the unknown. In one of the most significant steps by a UK leader since the Second World War, May notified European Council president Donald Tusk in a hand-delivered letter Britain would quit the club it joined in 1973. "The United Kingdom is leaving the European Union," May told parliament nine months after Britain shocked investors and world leaders by unexpectedly voting to quit the bloc. "This is an historic moment from which there can be no turning back." The prime minister, an initial opponent of Brexit who won the top job in the political turmoil that followed the referendum vote, now has two years to negotiate the terms of the divorce before it comes into effect in late March 2019. Sterling slipped against the dollar after a choppy day of...
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