ag,you missed your calling. You really should have been a comedian. Yes, there will be economic pain in the UK, but the idea that they'll be desperate to join the EE (European Empire) as a result is ludicrous. If nothing else, it'll be easier for any excess labor to come to the US than the EE and I doubt we'll be any tougher on illegal English immigrants than we have been on illegal Irish immigrants in the past.
The notion that the UK is without options at this juncture ignores the "new" reality. The UK has far more cards to play than the the EU and all of the EU's expose it to engaging in the very behavior that nationalists accuse them of.
I wish we did. The reality that a lot of people (both the public and brexiters) didn't really plan out for Britain to work on trade deals, and the current, rather lazy assumption is 'we'll get the best deal possible because we're British' and the 'Germans sell us cars'. Likewise the fact that most countries will insist that we hand out visas in exchange for trade deals.
I'm much more optimistic of getting a trade deal of some-sort from the US, but that's not saying much because we're going to get an awful deal from the EU if we refuse single market membership.
