What exactly is Article 50 and how is it activated?
On 23 June, there was a referendum on the issue of UK membership of the European Union and the shock waves are rippling through every corner of British politics and the British economy.
On a turnout of 71.8% (the highest turnout in a UK-wide vote since the 1992 general election), 51.9% voted for the UK to leave the EU and 48.1% to remain in it.
The British Government will now have to use Article 50 of the Treaty of Lisbon to give notice of the nation’s intended withdrawal from the EU and there is a period of up to two years for negotiations on the future relationship between the UK and the EU. The Article has only been in force since late 2009 and it has not been tested yet, so no-one really knows how the Brexit (British exit) process will work.
There’s the full text of Article 50, together with a discussion of how it might or might not be activated, here.
June 27th, 2016 at 11:31 am
The link “here” does not work, the server seems to have crashed. Instead you might offer this link to a Facebook post of David Allen Green.