Scenario: The United Kingdom Votes to Secede from the European Union

[ingemann]

1st Phase: Well first when UK vote to leave, the negotiation will begin to lessen the effects. At the same time UK will likely see a recession as the stocks fall and fewer people invest in UK as the investors are unsure of the future. Some foreign companies begin to move their European headquarters to Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Paris and other cities in EU.

2nd Phase: At some point the negotiation will end, as UK are in a very weak position, we will likely see them just rejoin EFTA. Which mean they will more or less have to follow EU directives and regulations, while they have no influence on making them, but they will likely be able to raise the borders to EU immigration, of course at the same time UK continue to pay to EU as part of the EEA agreement (http://www.eu-norway.org/eu/Financial-contribution/#.VF6qMPmG-VM) . The move of companies continue, but the recession is likely over, through the growth rates are low.

3rd Phase: New EU directives favour the members over UK, UK protest but are ignored. Low growth rates continue and in general UK suffer from companies choosing other cities than London to place their European headquarter in, and non-European companies with factories in Europea with focus on the European markets choose to place new ones other places in EU and invest less in the factories in UK, as they fear the instability in the EU-UK relationship. London no longer compete with New York in being the world's financial centre, New York clearly have that position by then, through London is still a major financial centre, through it's falling.

[ingemann]

2nd Phase: At some point the negotiation will end, as UK are in a very weak position, we will likely see them just rejoin EFTA. Which mean they will more or less have to follow EU directives and regulations, while they have no influence on making them, but they will likely be able to raise the borders to EU immigration, of course at the same time UK continue to pay to EU as part of the EEA agreement (http://www.eu-norway.org/eu/Financial-contribution/#.VF6qMPmG-VM) . The move of companies continue, but the recession is likely over, through the growth rates are low.

Just because a country is in the EFTA does not mean that it must be part of the EEA.  Indeed, for the Euroskeptics it wouldn't make much sense for the UK to remain in the EEA if it leaves the EU.

It do not make sense for UK to leave EU period, nothing more to say there. They can be forced to do so through a mix of political incompetence and populism. From that point UK need to limit the negative effects of leaving EU, that includes membership in EEA.

Of course if they choose to say no to EEA membership, my predictions will be offf, and eveything will end up a lot worse.

[ingemann]

Of course if they choose to say no to EEA membership, my predictions will be off, and everything will end up a lot worse.

Granted, I may be misremembering things since I'm not directly affected, but it seems to me that most, if not all, of the EU policies that get the Euroskeptics riled up are ones that the UK would have to continue to follow if they remained part of the EEA, just with no way to affect them.

You're completely right, but do you really think that any British government, no matter party will want to be the one remembered for being in charge while the biggest recession since the thirties hit UK? They will do what's necessary for UK.

Leaving the EU but staying in the EAA would be extremely disingenuous and contrary to the will of the people, assuming the people voted to leave the EU. Obviously they would mean the EAA as well. Staying in the EAA would just be the global financial oligarchy's way of subverting democracy and basically prove that voting is pointless window dressing.

Bullsh**t, if people don't like how the government administrate the result of a referendrum, they can elect another government, and I see no evil grand Rothschildian conspiracy behind stopping a economical collapse of ones country.

[ingemann]

There is one example of country in the EFTA and not the EEA, and it's Switzerland. In practice the EU impose its rules to Switzerland. One example is the last referendum on immigration: Swiss people mandated their government to negotiate a cap on immigration from the EU. The EU is answer is no, either you take the full package or you leave it entirely. True, the UK is bigger than Switzerland, but much smaller than the EU

.

Through it should be said that Switzerland have still kept the new cap on immigration, EU on the other hand have not cancelled all agreements (yet), instead it slowly remove one agreement after another, right now it's mostly the Swiss higher education which have been hurt.

[ingemann]

Switzerland apparently wanted to pick and choose which parts of the EAA it would be a part of, and I can see why the EU declined, but the EFTA is a separate agreement from the EAA agreement.  If the UK wants to be part of EFTA only and not any of the EAA add-ons, I fail to see how the EU would be able to decline, and if it did decline, do you really think an expansion of NAFTA to include the UK would be at all difficult to pass?

EU wouldn't want to keep UK out of EFTA (or really being able to), the problem is that there are a reason that most EFTA countries are part of EEA de jura and why Switzerland (the EFTA member which are not) is a de facto part of EEA.