00:38

David Cameron is expected to address the nation this morning, and he may well be writing his speech now. Here are some of the questions he has to address.

1 - What will be done to calm the markets? With the pound in freefall, will the Bank of England intervene? There has even been talk of closing the stock market to stop panic selling of share. Cameron will have to say something to steady nerves.

2 - Will he remain as prime minister? No one expects him to leave Number 10 this morning, but does he really think he will be able to oversee the EU withdrawal process over the next few year? Perhaps he does. More likely, he will recognise that is unrealistic. In that case it is possible that he may announce his intention to stand down later this year, possibly before the Tory conference.

3 - Will he invoke article 50 of the Lisbon treaty immediately? This is the process that starts the two-year countdown to Brexit. Before the referendum Cameron said he would trigger article 50 straightaway, but there is no reason why he should and every reason to delay. It makes no sense to start the two-year clock running until the UK knows what it wants. He would be wise to clarify his intentions.

4 - Will parliament be recalled? There is a strong case for saying it should sit on Saturday, to allow the government to assure MPs that it has a plan before markets open again on Monday.

5 - Who will be in charge of the withdrawal negotiations? This begs the huge question as to what mandate will apply to those doing the negotiating. Will Cameron seek cross-party agreement? Will he take the Vote Leave programme as a manifesto he is bound to honour? For example, will the UK definitely withdraw from the single market?

6 - Will there be an emergency budget? George Osborne said an emergency budget would be necessary this summer. Does that still apply, or will Cameron write that off as campaign scaremongering?

7 - Will there be an election? There is a case for saying a new prime minister may need a mandate for the withdrawal negotiations – although there are probably very few people in Westminster with the appetite for another election now?

8 - Does Cameron accept that the Scots have the right to have a second independence referendum? During the campaign he said the 2014 referendum was supposed to last for a generation, but there were some moments during the campaign when he accepted that the Scots would have a case for demanding a second referendum if they voted to stay in the EU while the UK as a whole voted out. And that is what has happened. (See 5.32pm.)