:Referendum of the United Kingdom's membership of the European Union:

As of when I posted this, 85% of poling stations have reported in -

51.6% leave

48.4% stay

What do you think is going to happen with the EU, UK, and the world at large?

While it's not the result I was rooting for I'm just going to have to do make the best I can from it.

Ideally the pound exchange rate drops significantly further now and I can do a bit of cheap armchair shopping, at least until I have to deal with customs again.

While there are a lot of good reasons to have complaints of the EU a lot of the debate on the 'out' side seemed to have focused very much on arguments which are either completely false or misleading to the point of lying. Considering the current rise of cheap populism everywhere, this is more than a little worrying.

On the bright side if this leads to Northern Ireland reuniting with the Republic of Ireland and Scotland joining them to remain in the EU I will be extremely amused. Extremely unlike, but they would end up to be strong football threat.

There were huge advantages and disadvantages to both sides. But for me leaving the EU just about marginally tops it... so IMHO Brexit is marginally the right decision.

EU would have worked, but it needed huge reforms, ... reforms that the current leaders are too reluctant and less radical carry out, they have very little enthusiasm to carry out the necessary reforms that would have made the union suitable for widely different economies - so yeah Brexit.

With countries with such a wide gap between their economies

then Britain, France, Germany... were net contributors to EU while others where net beneficiaries

Britain, was a net recipient of migrants - many of these contribute massively positively to the economy, but there were also massive pressures on public services and also there were migrants for benefits - these disadvantages outweighs the advantages - hence for me Brexit is right, but its marginal

The common market was good though

The shock of the exit has started and its going to be huge, but when it calms down then the positive benefits of being outside the EU would start to be felt

Hopefully, some "bureaucrats" (aka pawns of the finances) of the EU will learn something... But I doubt it....
As for UK, good luck and do not trust the "leaders".
I guess Gibraltarians will ask for independence now...

do not trust the "leaders".

Both sides of the debate/shit storm had 'leaders' on it... this wasn't The Common Man vs The Elites... plenty of the Elites on both sides, hell Brexit (*shudders at the words*) has been sown in the minds of many people for years by the right wing media, telling people day in and day out how the EU is terrible, how immigration is the worst, and all manner of other terrible things.

Not everyone would have voted 'out' because of that, but I suspect a number did... (much like a number probably voted out because of the not-a-promised-but-massive-hint that £350 million a week would go to the NHS... which, surprise surprise, wasn't true and can't happen, despite it being for many a key reason...).

As for 'what is next'...
Before October pretty much nothing; the vote isn't binding anyway, but it probably will end up being so, at which point once a new PM is installed they will have to start the leave process. At which point we have at least 2 years (if not more) of untangling things before we are 'out' of the EU.

Between now and then, things will drop but stablise, probably around the levels they are at now, at least until a new PM is put in to place at which point the markets will react again.

Also, from this point onwards, we might as well not bother with the EU; we now get 2+ years of paying in while we can get nothing done as no one will support anything we ask for.

But, aside from the economy taking a hell of a wack atm (currently, as I write this, the UK has now dropped to the 6th larget economy...) nowthing much will change for a while...

The markets will bounce back and life will go on like it always has. The EU is VERY new and England has ruled itself for more than a millennia. This will not have a long term impact on the UK, although it may destroy the EU. Even then, all of the EU states have existed for centuries.

Yeah.. for reference... UK != England...

Yeah.. for reference... UK != England...

OK, fair enough.

I was somewhat on the fence with my vote (pros and cons both sides) but now that the results are in I do feel disappointed. It was very close though and it's worrying to think a lot of votes will no doubt be mindlessly patriotic votes spurred on by propaganda. I've seen masses and masses of 'leave the EU' stuff being drilled into me but the only 'stay' things I've seen are things I've had to actively go out and find. To see near 50:50 when I consider all that really worries me..

This is probably going to be good for them overall. Now they don't need comply with some of the sillier EU regulations and follow laws written by people they may not have elected.

The real question is how long it will take the markets to recover.