OK next PM, let’s make it simple. You now have three choices:

1. Invoke Article 50 the day you become PM
2. Invoke Article 50 soon after you become PM
3. Find an excuse not to invoke Article 50

If you settle for (1) or (2) it is probably not a good idea for you to go for the Norwegian model – they pay to be in the EU but they don’t get any voting rights AND they have to accept free movement. Either (1) or (2) means LOTS of negotiating (by lots of extra civil servants you need to recruit NOW, by the way) as, if it takes more than 2 years, you walk away with nothing or whatever scraps the EU chooses to throw at you on the way out. And if it is (1) or (2) why wait? Just do it.

If you settle for (3) you pee off A LOT of the English and Welsh, but you make a lot of people in Northern Ireland and Scotland (and the EU) very happy. And you can blame LOTS of people for having had to take the decision, though your career might be rather short-lived. Good to have a Plan B with this one – maybe a job with an EU bank in Frankfurt.

So, if you still really haven’t decided what to do by this point, sit down with the people you trust, lock the door and don’t come out until you have made a decision. If you are still there after 24 continuous hours, it is an automatic (3).

Owl is glad to have helped.