The British prime minister is now making a strong play to pull Scotland out of the EU against their wishes, we'll likely see a race between the 'brexit' negotiators on the UK side and the Scottish 'remain' camp who will try to stay in without first exiting.
This is understandable from all points of view, the British government would rather like to negotiate from a slightly stronger position and the for the Scots because they were told they had to renegotiate their access to the single market if they seceded from the UK. Now that the British wish to exit that point has become moot which will most likely swing the referendum towards the Scots exiting the union. They probably feel quite cheated in Scotland.
The UK has 2 year to retract as article 50 allows that. 2 years is a long period in UK politics during which a vote of no-confidence could happen, calling for new elections that could retract article 50. Even if the 2 years pass, the EU already said that they would fast track the UK back in if a future government wants to come back. This is not over.
If the CJEU says that A50 cannot be revoked, then the Houses of Parliament can do whatever they want, they're leaving.
They would be free to rejoin. Euro, schengen, and metricification are mandatory now though.
https://www.businessinsider.nl/uk-supreme-court-article-50-n...
Basically, they've left the door open for us to vote in a pro-EU party in the next general election and abandon the whole thing. That's why they won't agree a trade deal in the next 2 years.
They're hoping, like me, that things will get sufficiently bad in the next 2 years the public gives a mandate to a pro-EU party, and the whole sorry mess can be averted, and then we can try Johnson, Farage and the other scumbag liars for treason.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/mar/29/first-eu-re...
Really powerful entities want to keep their shareholders happy by avoiding complicated regulations on international activities, and they have a lot of political influence. The people of London for example are mighty pissed.
The UK could be officially outside of the EU but to the banks, universities and import-export companies EU cooperation is as much of a reality as ever.
While London may remain a financial hub it will lose its importance. Multinational banks and insurances are alredy preparing to move entire departments to the continent. Especially France is extremely hard nosed in not providing the UK financial industry with passporting rights.
Frankfurt and Luxembourg are also yapping happily about the prospects of new jobs and businesses. And London is about to lose the privilege to clear deals in Euros.
Import / export has a lot to lose too. managing supply chains, without manufacturing just can't function in times of lean production and just-in-time manufacturing, gets incredibly harder and more expensive.
Universities? If you believe that they will just shrug it off I'm afraid you're in for a huge surprise. English universities will lose EU research grants. But the worst is that they will lose on foreign talent. Real talented scientists will think hard if they want to move to England in the current xenophobic climate and seek out alternatives.
The only bargaining chip that England really has is the defense industry and a pretty strong, experienced army, which helps provide security for Europe. Else then that? Not much.
And BTW: Comparing the situation between the EU and England with that in Korea is, well, grasping for straws? in any case it's a really bad, if not ludicrous argument.
Despite the defiance showed by some English politicians and the tabloid press I think that in reality England is in for a world of self-inflicted hurt. And mostly those people that enthusiastically voted to leave.
It seems that EU lawmaking bodies disagree with you: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-stop-ar...
https://www.businessinsider.nl/uk-supreme-court-article-50-n...
And I note that it requires unanimous agreement between all the other member states, which is a very rare thing. So a very thin maybe.