There are two scenarios that I can imagine: 1. The Swiss model: The UK will try to achieve bilateral agreements with all EU member countries (and ALL other cou

There are two scenarios that I can imagine: 1. The Swiss model: The UK will try to achieve bilateral agreements with all EU member countries (and ALL other countries that they didn't need to deal with before because they had a deal through the EU). 2. The Norwegian model: The UK will make a single deal allowing full access to the single market and transitive access to other markets through the EU (basically keeping the status quo). Both options have some things on common: Any kind of deal with the EU or EU member countries will require the UK to still follow all EU regulations (just as any other 3rd country who want to do business in the EU). Many countries that currently have deals with the EU (including the US) already stated that they won't engage in negotiations until EU/UK deals are finalized. That's leaving the UK in a dangerous state of limbo. Back to option 1: The Swiss have 200+ bilateral agreements with many countries in the world. They worked on these agreements for the past century. UK diplomats stated that even if they work full time on new trade agreements. achieving more than 1-2 deals per year is not realistic. A simple problem of diplomatic manpower. You can't do in 1-2 years what the Swiss have done in 70+ years. For comparison, just think about the amount of time put into negotiation TTIP. There's no respectable political scientist I know of, who would consider the Swiss modal a feasable option for the UK. That leaves option 2: Norway pays roughly the amount of a (full) European membership fee to get full access to the single market. They pay that only for access to the market. The have to abide by all EU regulations without being able to vote on them or any other kind of influence. It is still a good deal for them. The UK currently pays a reduced fee PLUS they profit from EU subsidies (reducing the net amount of money payed even more). The UK won't be offered a better deal than Norway. That leads to the UK paying A LOT more without receiving any of the benefits or having any say in the regulations they still need to follow. The UK would still need to let EU citizens into their country and allow them to work because that's part of the deal and the UK actually needs immigrants. The UK will take this deal because in the end membership fees don't matter that much. The 125b pounds the market lost in a single day equal 15 years of membership fees. So the "leave" people didn't seem to care about that too much. Here's a third option that I'd put on the table: Whoever comes after Cameron receives a vote of no confidence leading to new elections. Respectable parties will campaign with "If you vote for us, we'll ignore the referendum." Problem solved.