Now that the campaign is over, it is time for the consequences. What will they be? And how should economic policy respond?

Despite the warnings of disaster from the Remain campaign, at first, nothing very much is going to change. David Cameron has suggested that it will be three months before we invoke Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, which lays down a period of up to two years of negotiations between the departing country and the EU. But there is no reason why this period should necessarily be three months.

There is a strong argument for making it as long as possible, effectively doing pre-negotiations before the legal process starts. This would avoid the loss of bargaining power that would follow from being boxed into the Article 50 timetable. Meanwhile, Britain’s trading relationships would continue unaffected.