I dont see how it will lead to better agreements than what the UK had while being a member of the EU: they either will have to negotiate with each individual member state (and hence be in a discussion between equals) or negotiate with the whole EU at once (and hence be at a disadvantage being just a 'small' state trying to gain access to the market of the whole block). The former will be a ton of legal work that will take a long time to handle (not just the '1 or 2 years' that lots of people are claiming) and the latter will take even longer as AFAIK all member states must ratify each treaty signed by the block before it becomes active. So, for a full recovery, you can expect at least 5 to 10 years if not more.
This is just a quick google check, I'm in no way a European economic expert. But I find that the GDP of the U.K. is $2.678 trillion USD. The GPD of the entire EU (with the U.K. still in it for that total) is $16.8 trillion USD according to the International Monetary Fund. And therefore approximately 16% of the EU revenue since it's based on 1% of a member countries GPD I believe. Just dividing those two numbers out means the U.K. represents around 16% of the economy of the entire European Union. I'm not going to count that as a 'small' state. I think they have enough economic power behind them to get trade deals done.
And that number is again confirmed if you look at the
latest budget for the entire EU. There's a lot of breakdown in that pdf, but just quickly looking at the totals by countries, on page 17, you can quickly see the U.K. was the 2nd largest contributor to the EU. Only Germany did more. Wiping out that contribution total leaves the EU reeling far worse than the U.K.. The U.K. is an economic powerhouse all on its own.
But my thinking may differ from yours. I think you are coming from the angle of having to get back into trading with the EU as one major powerhouse now. So the U.K. will have to fight, plead, and beg their way into trade agreements. But I don't think negotiations with the EU will be the primary focus at all. So within a couple years it will be the EU fighting for trade agreements with the U.K.
The U.K. now has the freedom to go directly to emerging markets that the EU has been holding them back from. Their focus is most likely going to be China now. You'll start to see the agricultural produce of the U.K. going to those markets instead of the EU. Which will have a further negative impact on the economy of the EU. Not only will they no longer be getting that £3 billion a year* from the U.K. in CAP payments, but now the EU will have to pay to import that food from somewhere else if they stall negotiations. Or they won't be able to export as much as they are just to feed their own people.
Meanwhile China will be glad to take all the produce the U.K. can produce...and sell goods back to them in return. And it won't be just agriculture. They, and other emerging countries, will easily take up the slack that has been exclusively going to the EU all this time. Those deals will
not take years to put in place.
Again. I see this hurting the EU the most of anyone. I'd probably guess most of the 'stay' mentality has been funded by other members of the EU, because this is going to hit them the hardest and they know it. They just lost a lion's share of their funding for handouts to other countries in the EU. Any stalling in trade agreements just hurts the EU, all the while they are bleeding more money out to make up the difference in their CAP funding. The U.K., it's just going to further strengthen.
*(Net. £6 billion paid in by U.K. minus the £3 billion the EU gives back in subsidies as mentioned before in my post)
