Summary of the results
Brexit passed with 51.9% overall. Scotland, Northern Ireland, and most of London voted to remain.
So from here - at some point the UK Government will invoke Article 50. Most likely in October. That will start a 2 year timer on the UK leaving the EU.
If the EU signs off on countries following the Vienna Conference of 1969, UK citizens living in the EU would be able to remain if they are living there before the 2 years is up should be able to stay. In addition for Ireland there are agreements going back to the 1920's that let UK citizens live, work and vote in the Republic of Ireland. Those require sign off by the EU because they are a treaty between a EU country and a country outside of EU. Some EU countries are talking about punishing the UK for this referendum which brings into question if they would sign off on those treaties.
SNP has already called for a referendum for Scotland to leave the UK and stay in the EU. In addition Sinn Fein in Northern Ireland has called for a vote on reunification of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland so that Northern Ireland can remain in the EU as part of a unified Ireland. At this point I think the Scotland referendum is likely, but I am not sure a referendum over reunification for Ireland would occur.
That being said the UK does not have a single written constitution, and the constitution is as much as about precedence as it is the sum of all the documents that work together. It could be argued that the UK government could ignore the referendum, but it is unlikely and would lead to the type of constitutional crisis that defines precedence for the UK constitution.
Big day for the UK! It's sort of strange that a decision as monumental as this can be decided with a relatively small majority. Nearly half of all voters didn't want this outcome.
It's going to be interesting to see how things pan out over the next few months/years. Especially for the North/Republic situation. I really hope we don't end up going back to a guarded border (on either side of it). But you would imagine there has to be some controls in place?? Similarly with the England/France tunnel, right? I don't know what they do there now for security, but maybe there'll be changes to that too.
Interestingly...I have seen a few extra visitors to the site today from the UK. People have landed here while looking for search terms such as "dual uk Irish nationality" etc. I'm sure many UK citizens who never looked at getting an Irish passport before, will now start looking at their eligibility/ancestry.
I have not been through the Chunnel but my understanding is border controls are done in Calais by UK border control. UK is not part of the Schengen Agreement, nor is Ireland. It is possible that they could maintain a common movement area.
The biggest question comes down to what the UK can negotiate and whether or not Brussels will sign off on them or try to punish the UK.
Yeah, I think there'll be a strong push to ensure the UK does not benefit from the best of both worlds. Although, I hope as much common sense as possible is applied throughout the entire withdrawal process.
Link to Irish Govt's contingency plan document for Brexit:
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2900343-Contingency-Framework-Summary.html#document/p1
If I was the UK government, I would put in a simple reciprocal trade policy with the EU. UK tariffs on EU goods would match those set by the EU on UK goods. Then if the EU wants to follow the German Finance members comments about punishing the UK, they would get to hear from their own businessmen selling products to the UK.