I feel like our generation keeps getting fucked over every couple of years.
Anyway, article 50 will be triggered, and during this period no negotiations aside from those related to exiting are allowed to take place. You also have to remember that the UK will still be part of the EU during these discussions, so the UK is not allowed to have trade deal negotiations going on with those outside the EU. So let’s say it will take at least 2 years before this is all said and done. During these 2 years, speculation will go rampant again. GBP falling so sharply post referendum was simply a precursor to what will happen once article 50 is triggered.
Once negotiations have been completed, the UK will officially no longer be a country within the European Union, it will now be a third country with regards to the EU. It will have the same trade position as any country outside the EU. It will now need to set up trade negotiations with the EU as soon as possible. Negotiations, which the EU will make sure will be the most difficult they could ever be. This is because the EU has to demonstrate that leaving the EU is a bad idea. The EU is actually more than simply an economic union. It is a union of cultures, principles, and values. Those in charge, must demonstrate the strength of this union, above all else. The UK has not cultivated a strong friendship with most of the countries in the EU. It would continually get special treatment and special exemptions on many important things that other countries simply had to abide by. One could argue that the UK leaving the EU could potentially strengthen the EU and allow it to become the ever closer union it had set out to become so long ago. Even setting all of this aside the UK has left the EU at pretty much the worst time it could have, for reasons that directly conflict with the principles and values that the European Union had sought to instil among its member states. For these reasons, and reasons directly relating to the economic prosperity of the union, the UK will face essentially a non-negotiation.
The EU will show a copy of the Norway agreement, and the UK will either accept it or not. There can be no access to the single market without freedom of movement, everyone knows this. There is no negotiation to be had in this aspect, especially not now, and especially not under these circumstances the EU finds itself in. You also have to remember that any single deal offered to the UK will require all 27 member states to unanimously approve of. Considering the nature of the brexit campaign, and what the UK voted out of the EU for, some of these members, will naturally be opposed to anything that benefits the UK over their own interests.
If you want to know what kind of negotiation the EU will be giving the UK, you need not look further than the man Juncker has elected head of the brexit negotiations on the EU side:
