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Showing posts with the label Cameron Brexit

David and Samantha , morning after: how Brexit divorce gets messy

If Britons vote to leave the European Union in their June 23 referendum, Prime Minister David Cameron can effectively file the divorce papers in person to fellow EU leaders the next morning in Brussels. Just how he will arrange his diary, having scheduled the vote on the first day of the regular midsummer EU summit, is not yet clear; from then on, the process of "Brexit" will only get messier, as Europe's fractious leaders haggle their way through an unprecedented break-up that could take years to complete. Article 50 of the Treaty of the European Union lets a state quit and sets a deadline to negotiate terms within two years. If by mid-2018, Britain has not agreed issues like trade terms or the status of foreign residents, its membership will simply end -- unless it and all 27 other EU states agree an extension. Cameron's government said this week, however, that rewriting British laws post-Brexit and renegotiating relations in trade and other fields could take a d...