Today is what should have been the day of Brexit when the country formally left the European Union for a life outside the bloc. But after more than two years of negotiations with the EU, Britain's Parliament has repeatedly failed to agree on the terms of its departure and the leave date has been extended. In the referendum campaign, Brexiteers said leaving the EU would be one of the easiest things in the world. So, what's gone wrong and how did one of the most influential countries in Europe end up in a political crisis of its own making? Our correspondent Richard Bestic has the details.

RICHARD BESTIC LONDON "Brexit in its Parliamentary infancy was intended as a means of quieting a noisy and fractious element on the backbenches of the UK's ruling Conservative Party. The then Prime Minister David Cameron hit on the idea of a one-off in out referendum, which he believed would end once and for all the decades old civil war inside his Party. What could possibly go wrong?"

In defeat, David Cameron quit. New broom Theresa May brushed into the top job complete with a reassuringly uncomplicated message.

May promised to trigger the Brexit process quickly, the speed of which, in hindsight, a mistake according to some political observers.

PROF. ANAND MENON DIRECTOR OF 'UK IN A CHANGING EUROPE' "She was a Remainer in the referendum, so her first priority was to ingratiate herself with the Brexiteers in her own Party, which meant that in October 2016 in the Party Conference speech she laid down the very red, red lines. She did that without really understanding what that meant."

May lost sympathy and a Supreme Court ruling when she tried to bypass Parliament and start the Brexit process, making it harder with a General Election that lost her Parliamentary majority. Salvaging it required a 1.3 billion dollar deal with the 10 MPs of the Democratic Unionists in Northern Ireland, where ultimately May's Brexit plan would collide with the Irish backstop, a device to ensure no return to a physical border with the Irish Republic to the South.

JACOB REES MOGG MEMBER OF THE UK PARLIAMENT "This is not Brexit."

Anger spilled over into a leadership challenge on May.

GRAHAM BRADY CHAIRMAN, CONSERVATIVE MEMBERS COMMITTEE "The Parliamentary Party does have confidence (in Theresa May)."

Much applause for May's victory, but she was damaged with a third of her own Parliamentary Party voting against her. And when her Brexit deal went before Parliament not once but twice, it was resoundingly rejected. Members of Parliament have commandeered the Brexit agenda with ideas of their own and May has said she'd resign if only Parliament would vote for her deal.

RICHARD BESTIC LONDON "Brexit has already been a long and winding road with no ultimate destination yet in sight. It's already taken the scalp of one British Prime Minister and another is apparently on her way to the exit."

The big question though is whether it's politics and it'll pass or whether Brexit really is eating at the fibers of Britain's ancient political institutions. RB, CGTN, London.