I still have severe doubts this will happen. It will take many years to renegotiate and most treaties will be in effect until then.
My guess is very little changes, it's more of a sign that people want their country sovereign as opposed to being ruled by a committee in another country.
One longer-term risk is that it will destabilize the whole EU. If the UK doesn't collapse, other countries will ask for the same deal, and the EU will just fall apart bit by bit.
To extend your argument, maybe that wouldn't actually change much in the grand scheme of things! But EU regulations have a pretty big impact, so I think the breakup of the EU would actually be a big deal.
Now this is an interesting comment. Does anyone have specifics about the timeline with respect to the treaties already binding the UK to other EU members?
This is a non binding referendum, so nothing HAS to happen at all. But all the party leaders have promised to abide by the result, with varying definitions of "immediately."
Once the PM formally starts the process, it must be completed in 2 years according to the Lisbon treaty. The end of that period is when the trade deals expire. There will clearly be preparation before they formally pull the trigger, but it's anybody's guess just how long it will be. There may be a change in UK leadership over this, and there are upcoming elections in France and Germany to consider. The Leave campaign has talked about 2020 as a good date to end the separation.
For all the treaties that will expire, trade will fall back to the WTO rules, which (to my understanding) are like the benches at train stations. They're arguably better than nothing, but very uncomfortable to sit on for any length of time.
IMO the market to watch is finance. Losing the free movement of money is an enormous blow to London as a global financial hub. Especially since the London and European stock exchanges are merging, it's possible the big investment banks will simply move to Frankfurt. The financial sector contributes 84bn to GDP (of 2.8tn), so there's a lot at risk there. So if any treaties get signed quick, it'll be the financial ones.
If we don't leave the EU, it will completely destroy the conservative party. Very unlikely that they will risk their jobs. If they do, chances are a eurosceptic party would get elected in 2020 if a general election isn't called before.
My guess is very little changes, it's more of a sign that people want their country sovereign as opposed to being ruled by a committee in another country.