Brexit is the greatest disaster to befall the European Union (EU) in its 60-year history - but the referendum in which British voters opted to leave the bloc did not automatically signal the country's exit. That was the job of Article 50.
What exactly is Article 50?
Article 50 of the Treaty of Lisbon gives any EU member state the right to quit unilaterally, and outlines the procedure for doing so. It gives the leaving country two years to negotiate an exit deal and once it's set in motion it can't be stopped except by unanimous consent of all member states.
No country has ever left the EU before, and there was no way to legally leave the EU before the Treaty of Lisbon was signed in 2007.
The...