This is why we can&#x27;t have nice things.

Was this vote protectionist? I assume they&#x27;ll just setup free trade deals with Europe, similiar to what Norway and Switzerland already have?

It&#x27;s actually a good thing for Free Market, since the UK will now be able to define what rules they want to play with, instead of having to rely on EU&#x27;s bureaucrats.

As a free market supporter it is horrifying that protectionist sentiments reign supreme in the UK. Hopefully this does not foreshadow the US congressional and presidential elections in November.

How does anyone expect growth in a developed country? You can&#x27;t free market your way out of it without sacrificing your social obligations and protections.What is success? High YOY GDP growth? Or quality of life? Look to America (my country) with very limited worker protections, almost no social safety nets, extremely high income and wealthy inequality; we still only eek out only ~2% GDP growth, and that&#x27;s on the backs of the poor.

E? Do you know what welfare does UK has? They are good with their socialism. It&#x27;s not why they are leaving.  And EU is much more than money, look at history of EU and look in which part of the history there was no wars in EU.

The worldwide economy isn&#x27;t doing very well; it&#x27;s not just the EU.  Is there any evidence that leaving the EU will help this situation?  I think there are a lot of people who agree with you, but this whole thing seems too poorly planned and justified to really understand the impact.  People are voting based on how they feel instead of what will actually have the best outcome.

I&#x27;m sure Germany agrees.  The EU has been just terrible for member economies.

I&#x27;m sorry to directly contradict you, but that&#x27;s just factually untrue.The EU was built on an explicit policy of focus on small treaties, and avoiding creating transnational institutions. This was specifically to ensure that member states kept as much sovereignty as possible. It&#x27;s why even the largest EU institutions are generally incomplete and only operate with the ongoing cooperation of all the member states. Hence monetary union without fiscal union. Hence the lack of police and military cooperation. Hence no central border or immigration control. These are key functions of government, which the EU has never been able to centralize because of the practice of &quot;small steps.&quot;Its the way the US was supposed to work, only with even less power in the federal government. European federalism is free trade attached to a foreign policy body and a supranational court.The EU is more than 50 years old, not 15. it was established as a free trade zone first, to &quot;make war unthinkable and materially impossible&quot; - in 1958. That&#x27;s the core of the EU, and it works very well for the members by every material measure. I don&#x27;t know what makes you think otherwise. The recession has created a growing movement of Euroskepticism, but that&#x27;s associated with the extreme political right wing, and remains a minority - outside of Britain, it seems.

socialism?!! It is probably the only institution or country to have the free movement of capital and services written into its constitution.<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Internal_market" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Internal_market</a>

To be frank the EU was built on power centralization and socialism as key principles. It&#x27;s been what, 15 years+ since the Eurozone and the Economy is still doing as bad as before, if not worse for most member states. Hardly a success model by ANY measure.

It is supposed to, if you add fear mongering to it. Dictators usually believe in it, that&#x27;s why they try to control every news outlet or public space there is and spread their propaganda

For me, the downside of populism is that the political insiders and wealthy elite just so happen to be the people who actually understand how economies and governments and international agreements work.The common man may think he knows everything, but he really doesn&#x27;t.

From Wikipedia:Populism is a political position which holds that the virtuous citizens are being mistreated by a small circle of elites, who can be overthrown if the people recognize the danger and work together. The elites are depicted as trampling in illegitimate fashion upon the rights, values, and voice of the legitimate people.The notion itself is quite subjective of course, but it is definitely very different from &quot;democracy&quot;.

It is just as bad as oligarchy if left unchecked. There is such a thing as a tyranny of the majority. Or if you want to just look at the politics, if you tick off the wealthy elite or make it too difficult to do business, you end up with less control over things that matter since you&#x27;re either poor because all the business you ticked off went somewhere else, or basically a colony state as the important decisions are made elsewhere.The only reason why it seems more &quot;democratic&quot; is because for most of human history, the wealthy elite had way to much power compared to everyone else.

When you describe it this way, it sounds great. In practice populists are frowned up because they end up telling people nice things they want to hear, but aren&#x27;t true or are appealing to their more basic instincts.Imo it goes down to what your message is - both Trump ans Sanders are populists.

Populism rewards short-term thinking at the expense of long-term results, because the common person isn&#x27;t always aware of the deeper issues in a given field. Put another way, would expect the average person in the street to have an informed opinion on the details of [banking|medical|energy|transport|agriculture] industries?We already know how easy it is for yellow journalism to sway popular opinion; expecting direct democracy to be able to deal with the subtle nuances of governing a millions-strong society is nice in theory, but simply isn&#x27;t practical.

It is bad because it never ends up being the case that the populist leader just does what the people want. The populist leader is always an opportunist. I cite pretty much ever single case in history as backup of my claim.

Democracy involves thinking about the citizens, both short term and long term.Populism is just catering to the short term needs, even basic ones, just to get attention&#x2F;votes&#x2F;support.Populist example from Romania: get an IMF loan in order to increase pensions. Text-book example of shooting yourself in the foot long term, but a very popular action among pensioners, which are a large voting demographic.

Yes populism is bad. That is what has destroy South America with people like Hugo Chavez e.g. Populism is about shameless pandering to the emotions of the masses, rather than having a grown up talk about the nuances of real life and real politics.

Is populism supposed to be bad?  I just looked up the definition to make sure and it&#x27;s basically the principle that ordinary people should have control over government rather than political insiders and wealthy elite.  That sounds like democracy to me.  Is there an aspect I&#x27;m missing?

&quot;Change the world (but don&#x27;t)!&quot;

It&#x27;s ironic to me that a site where people extol the virtues of consistent culture at startups is so down on people voting to free themselves from a body politic they don&#x27;t believe shares their values.

Unfortunately nationalism and populism won another war. Now watch Scotland make referendum to leave UK and after leaving they will join EU.

Sigh....London should have a vote next to leave the UK.

Well, that rate also puts a floor under a lot of domestic manufacturing (see how it has worked for China?), so a little bit more complicated that &quot;gee, Miami is so much more expensive now.&quot;

The thing to remember about currencies is that they don&#x27;t move under the guidance of some magical force. Currency markets are literally people converting from one currency to another 24&#x2F;7. Fear and uncertainty, whether warranted or not, is what rules the market, and makes it ripe for speculation. I haven&#x27;t done Forex in quite some time but if I were, you bet your ass I would&#x27;ve been out there shorting the GBP like no tomorrow as the poll results started inching towards &quot;leave&quot; because of all the doom and gloom scenarios that have been floated about endlessly -- it logically follows that other people would be doing the exact same thing.Remember, this won&#x27;t even take effect for another two years or so. Literally nothing about UK or the GBP has fundamentally changed as of this moment, and yet the currency has been shorted as if the UK has simply snapped its fingers and is, as of this moment, no longer in the EU.What you&#x27;ll see in the coming days is an upward movement. Shorts are going to take their profits, which is going result in GBP buy orders, which is going to squeeze shorts, which will lead to more GBP buy orders. Will the GBP go back to its value as of yesterday? No. But it won&#x27;t remain down 10% either. Bank on it.

I wonder how many people would change their mind now because of this. If the pound keeps tanking, perhaps the market will end up forcing a bremain. Once again the financial markets behaving like a psycho bitch. Do you remember that one girlfriend that you knew was a bad idea but you just couldn&#x27;t help yourself?

British Pound is at the lowest level since 1985 at 1.33 USD&#x2F;GBP.

It&#x27;s hard to say. It could make Britain turn inward for labour. With the lost of less expensive external labour, the local market could rise as wages track demand. At the same time Britain may be loosing a lot of money soon. This could drive down demand since the EU will probably look to exclude the UK from contracts as a punitive measure, even if it&#x27;s just a subconscious thing.You might also see tech leave the country. Selling in the EU will be more costly. As a result, companies might start moving out or collapsing. Their former employees would then leave too.

From what I see, London&#x27;s tech industry will largely shift to Berlin and other places.

Well, the UK has always been a country that I had in view when thinking about working abroad. I think I can cross that off my list now. On the other hand, there is Ireland, wich I think will get a boom of tech companies migrating from the UK. And there is the possibility of an independent Scotland in the near future.

It likely means less immigrants coming in to do tech work in the UK, but there would still be huge incentives to allow some form of immigration since the UK wants to be able to have its citizens get work abroad. If they go to a more Australian model, likely alot tech work would be under a protected class of worker that would be allowed to establish some kind of residency.

With any luck, Adobe will also leave millions of slow and bugridden PCs in Britain too.

I heard from Adobe that they will close their headquarter near London and move to their main operation to the Paris office. The UK branch essentially becomes a sales office, nothing more.

Does anyone knows how this will affect tech recruitment?

Maybe the OP is Scottish?Scotland had a pretty clear Remain vote.

Not the OP, but as someone born in Britain, raised in Switzerland and now living in the US, I concur.At least in my case think of it as my identity being some mix of Europe-in-general, Britain-somewhat, Switzerland-somewhat. Now Britain says &quot;we&#x27;re not Europe&quot; (to horribly over-simplify). That doesn&#x27;t make me think &quot;oh well, now I&#x27;m less European&quot;, instead it makes me thing &quot;oh well, now I&#x27;m less British&quot;.

Can&#x27;t speak for OP but I&#x27;m British born and lived here all my life. I&#x27;m a supporter of the UK remaining in the EU. I lived under a delusion that most of my fellow countrymen were at heart sensible and forward looking, even if they grumble sometimes. Now it turns out that 52% of them are in fact short-sighted, xenophobic idiots. If that is what being British is, than I don&#x27;t feel British.

Can I ask why? The public spoke in completely free and democratic manner, against everything so called &quot;experts&quot; said. I thought this was a staple of being British?

Nope, born and raised in Southern England and live in Northern England now

Cultural self hatred is common in the UK, especially in the liberal and middle classes, its part of the reason the left didn&#x27;t mount a strong defense against the populism of the Brexiteers.

My experience of being British over the last 5 years has been one giant shame or scandal after another.Fuck this country.

I have never felt less British than I do right now. :(

The &quot;default&quot; would surely be to remain being an EU member, i.e. to do nothing. Voting to leave is a significant change from the status quo.

Poland and most other Eastern European Economies got a huge boost by access to the Common Market.

I agree with this. There has to be some balance - it is not like EU membership lifts the economies that enter it, so it doesn&#x27;t seem like it should be so bad to leave the EU. I also expect people to overstate the effects - like currency devaluing is both good and bad for the UK while people are acting like it is some kind of disaster. Stock markets also seem to largely be decoupled from the real economies these days.

Free movement is awful for the working class and great for the elites, which is the main reason for brexit happening. We want control over our borders and control over our laws.

&gt; helps that it&#x27;s the only English speaking nation in the common marketIreland? Malta? Cyprus?

Because Britain had access to all the good things about the EU (common market, EU agencies located in the UK, free movement) without some of the worst (common currency). 44% of British exports are to the EU. A significant reason for Foreign investment in the UK is because companies have seen it as a convenient way to sell in Europe (helps that it&#x27;s the only English speaking nation in the common market).And they voluntarily gave all that away. And they&#x27;ve simultaneously made a lot of enemies amongst their largest trading partner and closest neighbors.I simply don&#x27;t see how this works well for the UK (or should we say England, since the possibilities of Scotland breaking away have also risen dramatically).

I don&#x27;t really understand the reasoning either for or against this.The default seems to be non eu-membership. So why should Britain stay in the EU? People are commenting on this as though it&#x27;s really obvious.

Would love to see what the people who were shorting european stock (expecting this outcome) made out with.I think I read an article earlier today about Blackrock shorting like 50% of their european holdings or something?

Why did they have a vote if they hadn&#x27;t planned for what would happen afterward?  It&#x27;s completely absurd.

Despite what most people are claiming on social media and even here, the fact is no one actually knows what is going to happen. Even Nigel Farage, the leader behind the &quot;Brexit&quot; movement, has said he has &quot;absolutely no idea what will happen...&quot;<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.irishexaminer.com&#x2F;breakingnews&#x2F;world&#x2F;nigel-farage-has-absolutely-no-idea-what-will-happen-if-uk-votes-for-brexit-739925.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.irishexaminer.com&#x2F;breakingnews&#x2F;world&#x2F;nigel-farage...</a>

There&#x27;s no such thing and nobody knows. The UK may break up or not. This could be very bad for the EU or they could just shrug. Stay tuned.

<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.gov.uk&#x2F;government&#x2F;uploads&#x2F;system&#x2F;uploads&#x2F;attachment_data&#x2F;file&#x2F;504216&#x2F;The_process_for_withdrawing_from_the_EU_print_ready.pdf" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.gov.uk&#x2F;government&#x2F;uploads&#x2F;system&#x2F;uploads&#x2F;attachm...</a>

No, only time will tell. There was way too much biased reporting&#x2F;prognoses upfront.I personally think it will sort itself out just fine - even IFF (and that is a very big IF) the UK parliament follows the non-binding vote...

Noone knows really, it all comes down on how the EU is going to handle the Brexit itself. If EU shows stability after Brexit the international markets are going to be dropping but not as much, and the UK market is going to have issues. On the other hand if other members of the EU decide to go UK&#x27;s way then the international markets are going to have big issues. But its all speculation for now, and when  the priminister of the UK triggers article 50 the UK is going to enter nagotiations for 2 years. That is going to bring the markets up and down everytime a part of a deal is not successful or succesful, so ye noone can actual say what the implications will be. There will definitely be some short crisis in the UK and EU.

As a Brit, I hope it forces some EU changes and a new referendum. Largely because Scotland will leave the UK if the UK leaves the EU.

It may not impact anyone actually. It&#x27;s just a referendum and not a binding decision. I wouldn&#x27;t expect a ~50% vote to actually force a change.

Reminds me of Penn &amp; Teller&#x27;s &quot;biased as fuck, but fair&quot; approach to skepticism.

What does it mean? The Powers That Be have prognosticated every manner of doom should Brexit succeed. Despite that fear mongering, the threats and demands of all major political parties, many corporations and foreign leaders, the brave people of the UK have asserted their sovereignty. Over 72% of the entire electorate voted and produced a clear majority. That is monumental.What happens next? Next is the shaming; the usual suspects will condemn the UK as an island full of racists. The political class will start trying to figure out how to achieve &quot;Brexit-in-name-only.&quot; The BBC will come up with a story template they&#x27;ll reuse annually telling how -- if they had it to do again -- a majority would vote stay. What happens next is the elites will figure out how to work around their subjects and nullify undesirable electoral outcomes, as they always do.

Scottish independence in 2 years, a 10 year recession for what&#x27;s left of the UK, a 3rd ground war in Europe within 20 years.

Can someone please give an unbiased summary of what this means and how it will impact the UK, Europe, and the rest of the world?

Norway and Switzerland pay for that deals to EU fund. Funny thing is that if UK will get the same deal which i highly doubt (not as good as others after leaving - EU leaders already said that you can&#x27;t have cake and eat cake) they will pay only 8% less than they pay as members of EU now.

I don&#x27;t know why you&#x27;re getting downvoted. Even though they semi-recently voted to stay in the UK, they were by far the highest area to vote &quot;Remain&quot; - 95.91%

If the UK leaves, Gibraltar, or Scotland for that matter, can&#x27;t stay. They would have to apply again for EU membership. It&#x27;s a big mess for everyone.

Possibly, but I imagine they will wait and see what the border agreements arranged over the next two years look like first.

Would Spain accept an independent Gibraltar in the EU? Spain might offer union with Spain....

I&#x27;ve driven past Gibraltar. My initial intention was to go visit, but they have a significant border. The UK is outside of the Schengen area, so Gibraltar is there checking passports just like they will be in a few years when out of the EU.

Ooh, good point. Gibraltar is a very interesting case. As far as I understand, they really strongly want to stay in the UK and not join Spain, but they also really strongly want to stay in the EU, presumably because of Spain.That&#x27;s a tough one. No idea how that will turn out. In my mind, I now see lots of bits and pieces of the UK becoming parts of Scotland.

Gibraltar may want out too, they voted almost unanimously to remain and they probably won&#x27;t want to be locked into their detroit by a UE border

UK should just form their own EU but call it UK.

This part has REALLY irritated me over last few weeks. The &quot;ooh you know, EU membership isn&#x27;t guaranteed...&quot; scaremongering is particularly grating now that we are guaranteed to be out now.

This may revitalize Scottish independence, since one of the arguments to keep Scotland in the UK was spreading uncertainty about Scotland&#x27;s ability to stay in the EU if it left the UK.

&gt; Berlin can become the new London of Europe.I heard there are a lot of tech companies that already bought land in Ireland as a hedge against the Brexit, and that&#x27;s where a lot of the tech jobs are going to be going. (Albeit that&#x27;s only one industry, and I doubt that the financial industry would go in the same direction.)

It&#x27;s not about getting revenge, more so about making an example out of the UK to send a clear signal to other countries where nationalist anti-EU movements [1] are on the rise. If the UK does not suffer serious consequences, other countries might get some ideas about maybe doing the same.This is the dilemma, I don&#x27;t think the EU does want the UK to suffer just out of spite, but they can&#x27;t give them a generous deal considering EU stability.By the way: Berlin and London Stock Exchange markets want to merge, the UK leaving the EU is more of a problem in that regard <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bloomberg.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;articles&#x2F;2016-03-16&#x2F;lse-agrees-to-merge-with-german-rival-to-create-european-titan" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bloomberg.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;articles&#x2F;2016-03-16&#x2F;lse-agrees...</a> (though they said they want the deal to go along no matter the vote)[1] Front national (FN) in France, Alternative für Deutschland (AFD) in Germany, Partij voor de Vrijheid (PVV) (Party for Freedom) in Netherlands, nationalist movements in Poland, Hungary, ... Election in Spain might also not turn out to result in a EU-friendly government... (seriously could go on...)

&gt; Berlin can become the new London of EuropeIt&#x27;s not about the technology, it&#x27;s about the people and the money, which is all in London.

Well I live in the EU and I can&#x27;t remember ever voting in favor of punitive expeditions against nations that decide to drop out.If the EU really wants to go that way, it will only make more people wonder whether they want to be part of a transnational bully.

I know of at least one major investment bank that internally has told staff they will move their head office out of London.

The EU needs to move carefully now: it must not punish, or slap, or threaten. Just accept the result, making clear the benefits of EU membership to the rest of the members, including suspending the benefits that the UK had.Calmly, but clearly.This will be good for everybody: UK will be happy being free (a feeling which will trump any disadvantage they may be getting by leaving the EU), and the EU can proceed with greater political integration.

The financial center of Germany is Frankfurt, not Berlin.

I think that the EU will see the UK leave as a slap. So it will definitely slap back, especially Germany. I think with this result UK gave the ok to Germany to actually push UK&#x27;s economy into a devaluation and then e.g Berlin can become the new London of Europe.I don&#x27;t think the UK is going to get the same deal as Norway or Switzerland especially since the UK doesn&#x27;t want to get involved in the free movement.

If anything he was rolling over in his grave when 55% of the country&#x27;s laws were decided by politicians the people did not elect.

&gt; virtual indebtednessIt wasn&#x27;t just virtual.&quot;The Anglo-American Loan Agreement was a post World War II loan made to the United Kingdom by the United States on 15 July 1946, and paid off in 2006. The loan was negotiated by John Maynard Keynes. The loan was for $3.75 billion (US$57 billion in 2015) at a low 2% interest rate; Canada loaned an additional US$1.19 billion&quot;<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Anglo-American_loan" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Anglo-American_loan</a>

If the Scots were to leave now (which IMHO is much much more likely now), Churchill will be rolling in his grave. The Great island itself surviving virtually intact from WW2 only to break itself apart due to something like this.Though one could of course, consider this part of the ongoing aftershocks from WW2 which Britain never fully recovered from (i.e. final nail in the coffin of the Empire, its virtual indebtedness to the US), which led to what are probably the most US-like, capitalist-minded policies of the entire EU. Policies which, although making London the financial powerhouse it is, have undoubtedly alienated its rural areas, and have led to the referendum result we are seeing now.

Wishful thinking the the EU will be &quot;better off&quot;. There are a lot of nations far more critical of the EU than the Brits. The EU has serious problems (over-regulation, bureaucracy) and if they aren&#x27;t addressed, more nations will want out if they feel they are getting played (whether the economic indicators support said opinion or not).

Yes. They would have to let all EU citizens live and work(!) in their country.Including Poles, Romanians, all those people the far right despises.They wouldn&#x27;t have to let war refugees and asylum seekers in, though.

&gt; all the compliance with EU regulationsIncluding immigration? That seemed to be a big factor in the Leave vote.

What socialist countries, pray tell? The German chancellor is from the right. Spanish PM, same. France has an extremely unpopular socialist president who will be voted out very soon. The Italian government is nominally centre-left but has moved to the right in recent years.Socialism in Europe died in the &#x27;90s. What we have now are right-wing neoliberal elites trashing the place that social-democrats built in the &#x27;70s and &#x27;80s.

If the EU had been able to control its borders this would never have happened. Unfortunately it proved itself singularly incapable of dealing with even that task, having to cosy up to a dictator like Erdogan. There are too many bleeding hearts in European politics.

How do African demographic projections have anything to do with UK&#x2F;EU migration?

100% wrong because of one unavoidable fact: people are ageing.Without young immigrants and their higher birth rates there simply won&#x27;t be enough tax revenue to cover future social obligations. We know what this game looks like: Japan. A country looking at a steady and certain decline in quality of life. This is what the UK is going to be like.The EU is absolutely going to be dominant in the future. Collectively it has an economy that is more varied and flexible and the single market is invaluable. As a startup or prospective exporter being able to try things out in your local market (of 500 million people no less) is the reason the US is so successful.

&gt; And the migrant crisis, which is likely only at its beginning (look at african demographic projections)African demographic projections which shows Africa&#x27;s population growth slowly dropping? Coupled with economic projections which shows most African economies growing at far faster rates than Europe? With some African countries, like Nigeria, likely to overtake the UK in total GDP (not per capita) over the next 20-30 years? Largely as a result of massively improved stability and fewer wars over the last decade.Africa has plenty of challenges, but they&#x27;re mostly headed the right way. And they&#x27;re also slowly but steadily moving towards a far more ambitious union project than the EU, with several of the African Union pillars (regional closer unions like ECOWAS serves as &quot;first stage&quot; integration) hard at work at monetary unions and extensive integration.Of course things can change - nobody expected Syria to blow up the way it did and more than we expected Yugoslavia to collapse as violently as it did.But at the moment, countries like Nigeria are seeing graduates etc. returning in droves from the UK because the opportunities there are immense, cost of living low (though housing prices in parts of places like Lagos can rival London) and growth at levels you can&#x27;t hope for in the UK.

Short term it is going to be bad for the UK. It will have to renegociate trade agreements, this will create lots of uncertainty which isn&#x27;t good for the economy, and also lots of market volatility.Long term the EU is going nowhere, it is dominated by socialist countries that will go the way of Argentina, a slow but steady decline (well under way). And the migrant crisis, which is likely only at its beginning (look at african demographic projections), combined with Brexit and the rise of populism all over Europe, will likely put such a strain on the EU that I think its days are numbered.So on the long run, I think the UK has probably made a wise choice.

If I were EU - i would have agreement pre approved and ready to be signed - in the next 2 weeks.

I predict the UK flag will change in 10 years or less. Scotland will hold a referendum to leave the UK for the EU.

Not with the UK leaving, it&#x27;d be a great boost for the EU if Scotland were to join it. The argument doesn&#x27;t extend to Spain, because it&#x27;s not leaving the EU. Besides with the last referendum, Spain already said it wouldn&#x27;t block Scotland entering the EU.

Scotland coming back to the EU would be great, but not easy, since lots of EU countries would be willing to prevent it in order to make an example for their own separatist regions (Catalonia &#x2F; Basque Country in Spain, for example)

I am curious why this was down voted? Slightly cynical, perhaps, but not completely disbelievable?

I completely agree. 2% of the population deciding something of this magnitude is ridiculous.

&gt; Decided by something like 1 million people as of right now.I&#x27;m not sure I get this part. Are you just counting the difference in votes? How about the millions that voted for Brexit?This was decided by %50+ of the populace. If you didn&#x27;t agree to the terms, why did you come to the voting?

Scotland will leave the UK.Northern Ireland will unify with the Republic.FTSE 100 will open down 12-19%, which probably wipes out ISAs all over the place.This is history in the making. Decided by something like 1 million people as of right now.Just an absolute disaster.

I think what was interesting was that in regional charts, I saw Scotland strongly favor staying with EU. I found that interesting. It probably played as a factor when they chose to stay with UK, because as such they also stayed as part of EU. Now that UK is not part of the EU, Scotland might think again about its decision to stay.

These numbers only stand if you consider the current state of the UK. Without Scotland, no mines, no oil, less fish. England in itself, independent from the EU, cannot stand the test of time.

Don&#x27;t see the EU surviving without the UK.As long a Germany and France are on board, the EU will survive in some form. The UK has always been an obstacle to tighter integration, and that obstacle will likely be gone soon.

&gt; Is Scotland going to be exiting the UK next? Guess we&#x27;ll see in a few years.It&#x27;s possible. The same with northern ireland. But more interesting question is which european country will leave the EU next. Hungary? Greece? Finland?The UK is a pillar of the EU ( 2nd largest economy and the 3rd most populous country ). Don&#x27;t see the EU surviving without the UK.

You could almost call it a referendum on Chinese domination.

I disagree with #2. The media have always said they are the gatekeeper (or the fourth power or any other labels) but it&#x27;s a self assessment. Yellow press, tabloids, etc. feed off of extreme or stupid opinions that get labeled as `politically incorrect but true`. This becomes the visible mainstream discourse but time and time again elections and referendums show this is just opinions and sale driven editorial politics.The Internet didn&#x27;t break this dynamic, it&#x27;s just another media in the end (regarding the press) with a louder audience for the same ideas. Moreover the fragmentation of countries into regions doesn&#x27;t follow from that. It comes from national politics. National politics that just get votes and support from following point #1. And inevitably leads to a blaming game (they are a lot of Nigel across Europe).I might be wrong and I don&#x27;t have time to word my opinions like I would, sorry. Just my 2ç in the wee hour of morning.Ah. Strikes everywhere in Belgium today.

#3 is where its all at. I suspect this is the start of a wave of anti-globalisation action worldwide.

I agree with your assessment. I think I would remove #2 and swap #1 &amp; #3 - i.e. The Western working class has realized that globalization hasn&#x27;t raised their living standards resulting in (or as a result of) lower overall growth and this  causes liberal democracy to cease to be the status quo.

The main voices for Leave where strongly pro-globalization. So it&#x27;ll be interesting if they try to use this as a mandate to go even further on all this stuff.Is the UK unique in having pro-immigration, anti-immigration parties? It boggles my mind, and doesn&#x27;t get discussed much even in the UK. (I suppose Trumps incoherence, and lack of walking the talk, is actually very similar, now I think about it).

I agree with you 100%. What&#x27;s sad is that airing sentiments like yours is now considered anti-status quo, and therefore invalid. I suspect much of the positive polling for so called &quot;fascist&quot; candidates stems from dissatisfaction with that same status quo that invalidates these arguments.I especially agree with your #2, but I warn most people will disagree. It&#x27;s so foolish to think the Internet does not mean anything. I&#x27;m so disappointed when I travel somewhere and people mock my desire to secure a SIM card as quickly as possible. Why is it so frowned upon to connect to the Internet?

Starting with 3:Why should the citizens of a country be in favor of an economic policy that screws them in return for making the richest .001% of the population richer, and raising the standard of living for foreigners living in a mud huts to being slaves in a factory? This was apparent all along, but the people voicing these concerns were ignored or marginalized by the one sided economic voices in the media...So to part 2:The problem is that the economists you hear on the news telling you what needs to be done are wrong worse than 50% of the time (austerity, free trade with countries that don&#x27;t have equivalent economies, you name it). In the US after Trump (who I mostly disagree with) started calling out Carrier for closing a US factory to offshore the production, I heard a couple economists taking about how if carrier didn&#x27;t move all their production offshore no one would be able to afford an AC unit.To which, I was frankly shocked. central AC units, which are mostly assembled from 3rd party components, many of which are already made in china&#x2F;etc (unless you get lucky with a us built emerson&#x2F;copeland compressor) are extremely high margin businesses. The assembly costs in the US are a tiny fraction of the installed price of a AC unit (which are dominated by your local AC installer). Worse, prices rarely decline when production is off-shored, rather the savings tend to go back to the execs and majority share holders. Or worse, are used to buy or block smaller more efficient competitors.So, for a news organization to not vet this before allowing some doomsday economist to come on and talk about how the price of AC units are going to spike if carrier isn&#x27;t allowed to fire a bunch of $20&#x2F;hour employees in favor of a bunch of $5&#x2F;hour ones, while playing tax games with the profits (aka book the majority of the profits outside of the US to avoid taxes) is just insane. Heck carrier has a gross profit margin of &gt; 50% (its higher than Apple!).Bottom line, I think pretty much everyone I know is now trained to disbelieve anything heard on the news from a self proclaimed economist.

People keep using the word &quot;fascist&quot; however that&#x27;s incredibly hyperbolic. Conjecture and smears like this really make me disregard much left-wing analysis, seeing that is highly impartial.

A good discussion on Reddit regarding the same :
<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;PoliticalDiscussion&#x2F;comments&#x2F;4pkt22&#x2F;has_ethnonationalism_replaced_communism_as_the&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;PoliticalDiscussion&#x2F;comments&#x2F;4pkt22...</a>

Not too sure that I&#x27;m interpreting the diagram correclty, I&#x27;m just checking my assumptions:1) What&#x27;s the significance of circles? Do they represent voting districts or something like that?2) What does the size of a circle represent? Is it the population of a district, perhaps on logarithmic scale?3) Does the position on the x-axis represent how strongly that district was for remain or leave?Of course, you could give the link to the original source too, Google Image Search shows nothing yet.

4) an economy built on borrow and spend (essentially betting on the future) now coming in terms with built up debt, aging population and slowing economy5) this is a correction.

Your characterization of conservatives as &quot;fascist&quot; or anti-democracy is an accusation without merit (as is the oft-made, and IMHO completely unjustified, comparison of Trump to Hitler).As someone who grew up in the Rust Belt, I think #3 hits the nail on the head. For as long as I can remember, the area where I grew up has been struggling economically (it was hit hard by waves of factory closings starting in the 1980&#x27;s). None of the politicians from either party seemed to care.Now suddenly there&#x27;s a politician who seems to care about this issue, has a real shot at being President, and is different enough from the usual run of politicians that he may be paying the issue more than lip service and may actually be able to effect change.For a lot of people, this is a powerful motivation to get out and vote for him despite his obvious flaws, especially when his opponent is not only as &quot;establishment&quot; as they come, but her husband literally brought us NAFTA.To (3) I would add a &quot;prisoner&#x27;s dilemma&quot; dynamic -- theoretically it&#x27;s better if every country &quot;cooperates&quot; and gives all their effort to putting the benefit of the world as a whole above the benefit of their country (that&#x27;s the vision of globalization). But if some countries &quot;defect&quot; and focus on themselves first, then whoever &quot;cooperates&quot; feels exploited (and not wrongly so). A lot of people I know feel like some countries (especially China) are defectors in this game and we shouldn&#x27;t be suckers, so despite the theory, the practical thing to do is look out for ourselves first.

What&#x27;s strange to me is that so many people seem upset about &quot;stagnating&quot; at such a high standard of living. Most of the people driving anti-globalization are flirting with the highest quality of life of any humans to live. But because it&#x27;s not slightly better than that, they&#x27;re flailing around trying to find someone to blame. I think this all has much more to do with a changing &quot;way of life&quot; than economic factors.

I feel that the growth of Fascist sentiment worldwide can&#x27;t possibly be a coincidence. Globalisation and it&#x27;s benefits are being questioned.People are disappointed. Even this vote , is actually a vote of dissatisfaction against the status quo. They just managed to direct enough of that anger against the EU.I&#x27;d like to suggest the following three hypotheses and hear what you guys think :1. As growth slows , liberal democracy ceases to be the status quo. It&#x27;s much easier for a demagogue to whip up sentiments against the &quot;other&quot; when people feel that they have been left behind.2. The media has always been a gatekeeper and helped keep the more extreme voices out of mainstream discourse. The internet breaks this dynamic and now disaffected majorities can coalesce across regional boundaries within a country.3. The Western working class has realised that globalisation doesn&#x27;t seem to be raising everyone&#x27;s living standards. It&#x27;s more of an equalisation where large numbers of people in Asia are lifted into the middle class while the western working class stagnates.This diagram shows a clear class divide in the voting:
<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;i.imgur.com&#x2F;SneDXWa.png" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;i.imgur.com&#x2F;SneDXWa.png</a>I don&#x27;t have much more data to back these up so I&#x27;d be interested hearing any thoughts &#x2F; anecdotes about such things around where you live.

Is Scotland going to be exiting the UK next? Guess we&#x27;ll see in a few years.Hard to know what will happen here, but I suspect once the UK (or what&#x27;s left of it) signs a trade deal with the EU, they&#x27;ll get the same deal as Norway - all the compliance with EU regulations, with none of the say. I suppose people may be happy with that deal, as long as they can get to say they&#x27;re &quot;free&quot;.I&#x27;m hoping this somehow leave the EU in better shape, perhaps more cohesive, perhaps reforming in ways to minimize chances of anyone else leaving. As a Bulgarian (not living in Europe) this makes me somewhat bitter - seems Englishmen can&#x27;t accept belonging to a club we also belong to.

I jokingly said to my friend that we could solve a handful of complex problems easily - England* declares independence from the UK and leaves the EU, the rest of us get to remain. Since we&#x27;re already in fantasy land, London can remain if they like :)* = I am assuming the Welsh vote was due to a few of the Welsh lads being too exited by the Euros to vote, so they get a pass on being narrowly &quot;Leave&quot; this time

The City should be put on an inflatable mattress and dock next to New York City.

Unlike Scotland, Greater London has boroughs that voted for the exit: Barking and Dagenham, Bexley, Havering, Hillingdon and Sutton.

Independence for London!Roll on London Independence Party!&lt;&#x2F;half-joking&gt;Edit: Calls for London declaration of independence on change.org<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.change.org&#x2F;p&#x2F;sadiq-khan-declare-london-independent-from-the-uk-and-apply-to-join-the-eu" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.change.org&#x2F;p&#x2F;sadiq-khan-declare-london-independe...</a>

The way Scotland voted &quot;Remain&quot; is pretty stark: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;imgur.com&#x2F;gallery&#x2F;JjbEPZZ&#x2F;new" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;imgur.com&#x2F;gallery&#x2F;JjbEPZZ&#x2F;new</a>I can see an Independence Referendum 2.0 being pushed through...

&gt; 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 &quot;Frexit&quot; sentiments in their own country. Le Pen has already brought up the possibility (granted, I don&#x27;t expect her to be in power, but the idea is out there).

Exactly. The EU just needs to sit on their hands for 2 years, and that will mean an automatic tariff of 9% on 44% of British exports.Although with the plummeting pound British stuff might still manage to be as cheap. Only now 4.5% of British exports will be going into European hands instead of British.

The French are already saying the current agreement on border checks will be renegotiated, so they can free up Calais. The Channel will become the next Mediterranean, with flimsy boats killing people by the hundreds every month. This will call for increased naval patrols, which means increased military spending and so on and so forth...

&gt; If I were France I would start bricking up the chunnel tomorrow.The &quot;migrants&quot; are already working on it.<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.dailymail.co.uk&#x2F;news&#x2F;article-3651956&#x2F;Hundreds-migrants-closed-Calais-violent-rampage-tried-board-ferries-UK-police-used-tear-gas-force-back.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.dailymail.co.uk&#x2F;news&#x2F;article-3651956&#x2F;Hundreds-mig...</a>

Ha! You might find a lot of support for that on the Island.

&gt;If I were France I would start bricking up the chunnel tomorrow.Why? Out of pique? Out of being disrespected? Out of a general tit for tat?I don&#x27;t agree with the UK voters today (from my safe spot of not being a UK voter) but it seems pretty silly for the EU or countries within the EU to treat this vote--assuming it goes ahead--as a petulant child would, damn the consequences. They should and probably will make a rational response based on their own interests whether or not they&#x27;re &quot;annoyed&quot; or whatever the word is with the UK.

&gt;&gt;&gt; ... as we negotiate with the EU and the rest of the world.HA! Negotiate. If Britain want to shoot itself in the foot and unsettle the world economy, it can do so on its own. The EU need not concede on anything. Why should they, given that Britain won&#x27;t be a voting member in a couple years. If I were France I would start bricking up the chunnel tomorrow.

You don&#x27;t. Freedom of movement is a way to undermine nations building safety nets for their own people.

In a free market, I find the ideal of free movement very compelling. But how do you reconcile free movement with (quasi-)socialism?

A couple of years ? People in the know predict more like a decade.

&gt; This is really the beginning of a very long, tedious and ultimately unsatisfying couple of years of dissatisfaction and instability as we negotiate with the EU and the rest of the world.There is at least one positive point regardless of how you voted.The referendum gets people talking about the issue and makes them more aware of the pros and cons. Over time they will find out if that was a good or bad move for the success of the UK.

I voted today.I work in London at a startup with international markets. I believe in the ideal of free movement. I think the EU is a bit of a mess conceptually and mechanically, but in general a step forward for Europe.This is really the beginning of a very long, tedious and ultimately unsatisfying couple of years of dissatisfaction and instability as we negotiate with the EU and the rest of the world.

I was reading this today and a quote stood out.<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Protectionism" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Protectionism</a>&gt;&quot;When goods cannot cross borders, armies will.&quot;I think it would be interesting to see how many protectionist schemes have lead to wars vs. free trade.

Oh yeah; they also engaged in trade wars, which often degenerated in conventional wars. The EU was built to avoid that.Welcome back to the Hobbesian jungle.

They also paid tariffs, and micro-regulated what, how, when, and in what quantities could be imported &#x2F; exported.Brexit will change that.

I don&#x27;t understand the hand-wringing.Countries have engaged in trade for thousands of years - Brexit won&#x27;t change that.

They have many good reasons to leave the EU.  And very few reasons to stay.

&quot;Frexit&quot;. I say that as a joke, but I can see that happening.

It&#x27;s a domino effect looking forward. Other nationalist parties in other nations e.g. France will look at this result and try to leave as well. Scotland could easily leave the UK given that they wanted overwhelmingly to stay. It&#x27;ll be interesting to watch how foreign UK citizens will be impacted with their jobs in Europe.The consequences are huge.

This decision is going to have major effects on markets over the next few days.

The characterization of populism reminds me of the Demotivator poster on meetings: &quot;None of us is as dumb as all of us.&quot;

I&#x27;m pretty sure he just stated that both socialists and fascist want centralization of power. I&#x27;m pretty sure that&#x27;s not a debatable stance. It doesn&#x27;t imply that if you&#x27;re a socialist then you must be fascist. That&#x27;d be a logical fallacy.Just as if I said, &quot;soccer moms and skin-heads both breathe air&quot;. Should soccer moms feel attacked? Am I name calling? Of course not.

So Trumps populism is something good because what? Americans was taught that it&#x27;s a good thing? What&#x27;s your point here? USA has federal government = centralization of power so whats your point? I am living in EU, but i am not socialist and for sure i am not fascist so what you wrote is totally wrong.EDIT: And next time think before saying that someone is in same shoes as fascists. My grand grandmother husband and son was killed fighting with fascists.

Populism is seen as bad by people who think &quot;Let&#x27;s beat those guys up, not necessarily because they did something bad or deserve it, but just because we&#x27;re angry and want to beat someone&quot; is a bad idea.

When left-winger insults right-winger, it&#x27;s not against TOS, but when right-winger insult left-winger, it is. Curious, really...

Please don&#x27;t call names in arguments (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;newsguidelines.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;newsguidelines.html</a>), especially politically inflammatory ones.We detached this subthread from <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=11966245" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=11966245</a> and marked it off-topic.

Populism is seen as bad by people who want centralization of power (socialists of all borders in general, as well as fascists). So if you have been fed the socialist propaganda for years when living in the EU, you assume it&#x27;s bad.

Not to mention the UK is ruled by a hereditory monarchy with an unelected upper house of parliament.

Please don&#x27;t use all caps for emphasis: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;newsguidelines.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;newsguidelines.html</a>.

I&#x27;m tired of this unelected trope. MEPs are elected, and they have final say on legislation. Commissioners PROPOSE legislation (which is then amended by Parliament committees, usually), are nominated BY THE GOVERNMENTS YOU ELECTED, and can be dismissed by the Commission President, who answers to the ELECTED European Parliament.The failure to make people understand Lisbon 2009 reforms is what is killing the EU.

Please don&#x27;t do the flamewar thing here.We detached this subthread from <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=11966234" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=11966234</a> and marked it off-topic.

As opposed to the Bishops of the House of Lords?

Oh the irony, coming from a country with a fucking Monarch and an unelected House of Lords

Doom and gloom, doom and gloom! In your world, in order to survive England needs to kneel before the unelected bureaucrats of Brussels.

The UK and the US really head the current hegemony that is currently instilling so much war in the world. I believe the EU does share this responsibility, but I also really hope the UK leaving the EU helps the rest of Europe in in pushing back against these covertly back wars in Syria and elsewhere.British citizens may not be able to world and live throughout the EU any more either. People already abroad may lose their work status on nations without reciprocal fall-back agreements.This is a pretty big change, but I don&#x27;t think it&#x27;s a bad one.

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 &quot;immediately.&quot;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&#x27;s anybody&#x27;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&#x27;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&#x27;s possible the big investment banks will simply move to Frankfurt. The financial sector contributes 84bn to GDP (of 2.8tn), so there&#x27;s a lot at risk there. So if any treaties get signed quick, it&#x27;ll be the financial ones.

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?EDIT: As mentioned elsewhere, here&#x27;s an interesting summary with projected timelines: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.gov.uk&#x2F;government&#x2F;uploads&#x2F;system&#x2F;uploads&#x2F;attachment_data&#x2F;file&#x2F;504216&#x2F;The_process_for_withdrawing_from_the_EU_print_ready.pdf" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.gov.uk&#x2F;government&#x2F;uploads&#x2F;system&#x2F;uploads&#x2F;attachm...</a>

One longer-term risk is that it will destabilize the whole EU. If the UK doesn&#x27;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&#x27;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.

If we enter a recession the Tory party will loose the next election.

If we don&#x27;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&#x27;t called before.

It&#x27;ll need to happen quickly to calm the markets. Otherwise our economy will suffer massively leading to recession.

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&#x27;s more of a sign that people want their country sovereign as opposed to being ruled by a committee in another country.

It&#x27;s not really a majority though. If I polled 100 people and said to you the majority said leave, how many would you estimate that is? 75-90 perhaps?This result seems to be 52&#x2F;48 so it&#x27;s incredible that such a monumentally important decision is to be made from this interpretation of a majority.

I don&#x27;t know, that&#x27;s not exactly what happened in Ireland with the Lisbon Treaty. When the first referendum didn&#x27;t get the results &quot;expected&quot;, they forced a second referendum after much campaigning and the results were different. Democracy at work? Bureaucracy at work? Who knows.

It is not legally binding, so nothing. But who would take responsibility of organizing that, disregarding the opinion of the majority of the British people? And what do you suggest, having a non-binding referendum until Remain wins?Out is out.

If there was a concession from the EU on free movement, I&#x27;m somewhat doubtful about that though.

What&#x27;s stopping Britons from having another referendum?

Is this the beginning of the next great recession?

It&#x27;s also little more than a figment of imagination these days, as the bulk of UK trade is with Europe, Australia has turned to China, Canada lives off US trade and South Africa is following suit. I guess there&#x27;s always Zimbabwe...

not really analog or even close to what the eu is.

Also the sun never sets in it. Literally.

Similar to the EU currently and growing much faster, India and the African nations have a lot more growth potential than modern day Europe.

There&#x27;s not much &quot;common wealth&quot; in the Commonwealth though. I think the main extent of our cooperation is hosting the Commonwealth Games every few years.I wonder if the UK will start buying NZ dairy products again. UK joining the EEC (they went from taking 75% of NZ cheese exports to &lt;10%) and the oil shock in 1973 basically tanked the NZ economy.

Of course, a lot of that land mass is in virtually uninhabitable parts of Canada and Australia.

We detached this subthread from <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=11966250" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=11966250</a> and marked it off-topic.

It&#x27;s called the commonwealth, and it includes 30 percent of the land mass of earth.

Oh, Quebec won&#x27;t ever leave.  Even those who want to &quot;leave&quot; don&#x27;t really mean leave.  They always expected to keep Canadian money and passports.  But we will have to live though a year of pathetic &#x27;will they&#x2F;won&#x27;t they&#x27; news stories along with another round of French language laws and other things only the gray-haired care about.

I don&#x27;t expect the UK to come out better off from this.This may actually work really well for the opponents of separatist movements in developed nations.

... and Scotland, Ulster, Flanders, Catalonia, the Basque Country, Verona, Corsica. There are more separatist movements than one might think.

And a special thank you from Canada.  This vote is going to give Quebec ideas again.

&gt; Not so sure on this one: one thing that the UK is an example of is its respect for democracyHa! Let&#x27;s remind each other about this conversation in 3 months and review our arguments.

&gt; Not so sure on this one: one thing that the UK is an example of is its respect for democracy.As a Brit, I find that laughable.

Not so sure on this one: one thing that the UK is an example of is its respect for democracy. I hope the parliament accepts this non-binding vote, and take the necessary steps to swiftly break with the EU.We in the EU can then proceed unhindered.

As some people already said, even if the vote will be &#x27;Leave&#x27; the Parliament most likely will not consider it and will not  part ways with the EU siting some made-up problems, that &quot;prohibit&quot; the exit right away. Await another referendum until the necessary results are obtained.

&gt; Is now a good time to invest in British currency? Are there some good resources for how to do that?I can&#x27;t imagine that it would be a good idea for you to invest in anything when you have to rely on the judgment of internet strangers if it&#x27;s a &quot;good time&quot; to do so.If you disagree, I have a really fine bridge to sell you in London.

If you have to ask, that means you shouldn&#x27;t. The word you&#x27;re looking for is FOREX and it&#x27;s a great way to lose all your money.

Is now a good time to invest in British currency? Are there some good resources for how to do that?

That was quite unexpected.  Till very late before polling, most people were in favor of staying in the EU.  Nationalism takes over logic in Europe again.

Unlikely. Much of the resentment from Leave voters was over immigration from EU countries. The EEA guarantees free movement of people within it.If there are further referendums, they&#x27;ll be for Scottish independence, Irish unity and for Gibraltar to become part of Spain.

There&#x27;s a decent chance that this will spur the EU into proposing a package of reforms with a view towards a second referendum. Technically, this referendum was an advisory referendum (i.e. its result is not legally binding).If that doesn&#x27;t happen, I would expect the UK to shift from membership of the EU to membership of the European Economic Area (alongside Norway and Iceland) or similar.

The one minor party won the most recent Euro elections, but FPTP locked them out of power at Westminster. And something like just under half of the UK ruling party&#x27;s MPs supported Brexit.

52% of the country just asserted that there&#x27;s only one party, a minor party, that agrees with them on this incredibly important issue.  Everything in UK politics is going to change.

I&#x27;m not from the UK and I don&#x27;t have any problems with the Limeys but I still thinks this is awesome: For way too long national governments in the EU have passed legislation on the EU level when they could not get it through national parliaments and then they could refer to &quot;the EU says so&quot;. I hope this serves as a wake-up call to national governments that they should actually listen to their citizens.

The count hasn&#x27;t finished, and the article title on HN doesn&#x27;t match the title of the BBC article. It&#x27;s deceptive, implying that the count has finished and the UK has voted to leave Europe. If you look through the comments here you&#x27;ll see most people have got the wrong end of the stick from the incorrect HN title (presumably they haven&#x27;t actually read the article).

The vote has long finished, I&#x27;m afraid. They&#x27;re just counting now

Please fix title. The article title is &quot;EU referendum: BBC forecasts UK vote to leave&quot;. The count hasn&#x27;t even finished yet, and it is still possible for the remain vote to win at the current time (albeit unlikely).

UK votes to leave EU