How Brexit divorce gets messy, the day after UK vote in June

If Britons vote to leave the EU in their June 23 referendum, UK 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.