[noarchy]

> If I were France I would start bricking up the chunnel tomorrow.

Depending on how things turn out in France in the near future, they may be busy fighting "Frexit" sentiments in their own country. Le Pen has already brought up the possibility (granted, I don't expect her to be in power, but the idea is out there).

[addicted]

Which is exactly why I think the EU will try to make Britain a lesson and not make any concessions. It would be in the EU's interests to really damage Britain even if it means they get hurt themselves, because if Britain is allowed to leave without much pain, there may not be an EU left.

[sandworm101]

Unless seeing how badly it goes for the brits convinces them to stay. Over the next two years everyone who can will be moving money, property and family out of Britain and into somewhere more stable. This could be a real boom for France and Spain.

[Turing_Machine]

France and Spain are "more stable"? How do you figure that? The UK has maintained the same basic form of government for centuries, and has been free of civil war since 1651. Spain was ruled by actual Fascists until 1975. France is on its fifth attempt at a republic (with intervening periods of monarchy, empire, reign of terror, and Nazi collaborationist regimes).

[tonyedgecombe]

To be fair the Nazi thing was imposed.

[lettergram]

How bad do you think this is going to be? The majority of trade for the UK is with commonwealth countries and the U.S. both of which are unrelated to the EU.

[T-A]

https://www.uktradeinfo.com/Statistics/OverseasTradeStatisti...

Non-EU Exports for April 2016 were £13.0 billion. EU Exports for April 2016 were £12.0 billion.

Non-EU Imports for April 2016 were £21.9 billion. EU Imports for April 2016 were £19.1 billion.

[sandworm101]

Props for using actual numbers, something that was very lacking in this process.

[lettergram]

My bad, it was much closer than I thought. I do recall that the majority prior to joining the EU was with commonwealth nations.

Regardless, it's not like materials to trade disappears... my guess would be the UK negotiates with the EU to basically keep trade the same. If not the UK will be increase exports elsewhere.

[matthewmacleod]

That's the point though - keeping trade rules the same implicitly means keeping things like free movement and acceptance of EU regulation.

It's far from clear that the UK will be able to sort this out easily.

[tonyedgecombe]

Especially since the electorate thought they were voting against free movement.

[sandworm101]

It will be as bad as France, Germany, Poland and everyone else wants it to be. Decisions as to how to tax/regulate and/or block trade with Britain are now out of Britain's hands.

Those commonwealth countries (Canada) also trade with the EU. Whether they will choose to favour britain or not is also open. We'll get back to you on that one.

[lettergram]

Pretty sure trade agreements with the commonwealth remain unchanged. Basically, you don't choose to trade, if an agreement is in place the companies choose to do trade. With a weaker pound it would be cheaper to buy goods from the UK.

[themihai]

How much beef does UK sell to the US? I heard this retoric question every time US trade was argued

[BrainInAJar]

> This could be a real boom for France and Spain.

Switzerland's the real winner in this one

[faebi]

Probably not, the Swiss franc is already strong and its getting stronger. It hurts switzerlands exports quite hard. It would be better for switzerland if all those crysises would stop so the frank would get wealk and we could export more.