There we have it. After the most divisive election campaign in modern history, the United Kingdom electorate has made up its mind about the direction it wants the country to take after almost four years of uncertainty.

Well, up to a point. Although the UK's formal departure from the European Union is now beyond doubt, the final shape of its future trade relationship with its 27 former European partners remains to be resolved.

As for the UK's wider global role, voters who delivered Boris Johnson's Conservatives such a stunning victory are as much in the dark as are its international partners.

There is already speculation that Johnson might use his substantial margin to isolate the Brexit hardliners within his own party in order to keep the country more closely in line with the EU in terms of trade than his campaign rhetoric suggested.

Or will he now look outwards and fulfill the Brexit promise of lucrative trade deals with the wider world, starting with the United States? President Donald Trump, in congratulating Johnson, added: "They want to do business with us so badly."

Or perhaps the pursuit of an independent trade policy will encourage Johnson to pivot toward Asia, possibly signing up to what is left of the Trans-Pacific Partnership since the US pulled out.

Japan, Australia and New Zealand have made encouraging noises but much will depend on the terms of the UK's future relationship with the EU.

The new Johnson government also has to consider how it will balance growing its trade relationship with China while pursuing a trade deal with President Trump.

Although Beijing would have preferred the UK to stay in the EU, an analysis by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development has found China would be the biggest winner from a no-deal Brexit. That outcome is still a possibility if the UK fails to strike a trade deal with Brussels within Johnson's self-imposed 12-month deadline.

Few of these issues were addressed during an abrasive election campaign in which Johnson focused on the simple slogan of "get Brexit done", without defining what that actually meant.

It was a populist message that appealed both to former Labour voters in distressed areas of northern England looking for increased state spending and to Johnson's London-based hedge-fund backers who want to create a deregulated, freewheeling "Singapore-on-Thames".

Amid these conflicting aspirations, the UK prime minister's challenge will be to please at least most of the people most of the time, with as yet no clear indication whether the new government's inward-looking or outward-looking tendency will prevail.

The UK's international partners, some of them increasingly frustrated by years of Brexit indecision, can meanwhile only watch and wait.

China's Premier Li Keqiang was among world leaders who sent congratulatory messages to Johnson. Li said exchanges and cooperation between the two countries in various fields had huge potential.

He hoped the trend would continue and that China and the UK could contribute to world peace and stability, multilateralism and an open world economy.

Li made the point that their role as major world economies and their permanent membership of the United Nations Security Council meant the relationship between China and the UK had global significance.

It was a generous assessment, given that the UK's international prestige risks being further diluted by developments after Brexit.

Post-imperial Britain has long held to the belief, or perhaps the delusion, that it can continue to "punch above her weight in the world," as former UK foreign secretary Douglas Hurd said in 1992, using a boxing analogy.

Delusion or not, the UK has succeeded in employing a large measure of soft power to enhance its status, employing diplomacy and foreign aid to maintain its global profile and sometimes acting as a bridge between, for example, the US and Europe.

There has already been speculation that Johnson plans to slash the UK's generous aid budget, while the country's reputation for honest politics has been hammered by Brexit and the recent campaign.

Senior diplomat Alexandra Hall Hall quit just before the election and expressed her dismay at UK political leaders using misleading and disingenuous arguments.

The question of the UK's role and status in the world may turn out to be quite academic if the outcome of Brexit and the latest election were to lead to the country's breakup.

An overwhelming vote for the nationalist party in Scotland may mean that the largely pro-Europe region will sooner or later go its own way. A majority in Northern Ireland may also eventually conclude that they are better off joining the Republic (of Ireland) to the south.

By the time the next election comes around the rest of the world might find it is not dealing with Great Britain any longer but rather with Little England.