BERLIN (AP) — In less than a month, the United Kingdom could leave the European Union, but more than a million British nationals will remain there — unwilling to let Brexit force them from the lives they've built on the continent.

The U.K. Parliament's refusal so far to back the withdrawal agreement negotiated with the bloc is raising the prospect of a disorderly divorce that could hit Britons abroad particularly hard, abruptly nixing the benefits they've enjoyed as EU citizens over the past 46 years.

"Many people could be left in limbo," said Jane Golding, chair of the group British in Europe that campaigns for British citizens' rights in the EU. Just how stranded they are depends on their personal circumstances and which of the 27 remaining EU countries they live in.