"The process of leaving the EU takes at least two years, so European immigrants will not have to flee across the channel immediately. After that first rush of panic—what will the world be like?—a deeper panic will follow, and it should.
Brexit is the first major victory for the rising xenophobia that is sweeping the world, which has already overtaken the Republican party in America, and which has gathered significant support in almost every major democracy.
We have to face up to an ugly truth about the world as it is: The hatred of difference is winning.
...
Brexit is the first case since the Second World War of a major global economy choosing, of its own free will, to leave the international system.
Already, the economic costs of that decision are staggering, and they will worsen.
The Financial Times this morning reported that the proposed sale of Tata Steel and Tata Motors, Britain's largest steel producer and its sister car company, to foreign ownership has been stopped. The people in the towns where those steelworks function voted to leave the European Union by 57 to 43 percent. Now their employers, who will not be their employers for long, will have no access to the largest market at hand.
This is what economic suicide looks like."
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/news/a46143/why-brexit-bad-for-britain/