The Brits plan to send their Brexit letter on March 29th.
My suspicion is that the EU side of the negotiation will attempt to make it as hard as possible for the Brits. No favorable trade treatment, no deal on British expats unless the Brits agree to permit free movement of EU-member workers, which I assume they won't, as that was a centerpiece of the Brexit campaign. It may end up with a "hard Brexit", where if no deal is reached, the UK is booted out of the EU on March 29, 2019.
The UK might want to stay in the "single market" (despite what PM May has said), but I bet that won't fly. Paris and Geneva, among other major EU cities, may want to siphon off the banking business that London has had. They'll put pressure on their governments to not agree with the UK staying in the single market.
Scotland may leave the UK over this. There's probably less of a risk of Northern Ireland doing the same, but it's not inconceivable. Which means, for all intents, that the reign of Queen Elizabeth II will have begun with her being sovereign over an empire and it will end with her being the Queen of England and Wales.
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Northern Ireland stays put. If it leaves the U.K., it's a matter of a few years before it joins the Republic of Ireland because of demographics. The most committed Loyalists will probably leave if Northern Irelamd votes to breakaway, certainly the middle of the road Protestants, who cannot see living under the Church's rules, will flee. It's still inevitable, but this would knock 25-50 years off the timeline.
I suspect Scotland will stay too, but receive some major concessions from Whitehall. Despite all the Independence and pro-EU talk, the numbers show about 57% against leaving to try to rejoin the EU. The EU muffed that one with the statement that Scotland would have to leave the EU with the U.K. and then apply to rejoin. Expect the Welsh to piggy-back on this one too.
Elizabeth would still be queen of Scotland.
If Britain was run by smarter people, they would delay and never ever invoke Article 50.
I would suggest reading the treaty itself as a start.
http://www.lisbon-treaty.org/wcm/the-lisbon-treaty/treaty-on-the-functioning-of-the-european-union-and-comments/part-5-external-action-by-the-union/title-5-international-agreement/506-article-218.html
Some economic backgrounders:
1. The UK largest imports are Germany and Norway.
2. Norway is hurting because of the price of oil.
3. The UK has ~880K Poles employed in country.
4. The Polish economy sucks.
5. Germany is tired of bailing out Greece.
6. The UK is not in the Euro zone.
You can see where this is going. Now we'll see what happems.
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