Brexit: What will happen next? EU’s secret plans REVEALED

BRUSSELS boffins are planning a host of of secret plans to punish Britain after voting “leave” in the EU referendum.

By Tom Evans

TERMS: Brussels bureaucrats are planning how to deal with post-Brexit Britain

The Prime Minister has resigned and leaders across Europe mourn the loss of a “family” member.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is under huge pressure as members of his own party call for him to go.

And Britain could be facing a second referendum on Scottish independence after the deeply divisive result.

But secret meetings in Brussels and across Europe reveal even more uncertainty...And they've got a few tricks up their sleeve.

This is a rough guide to what might happen next, based on conversations with insiders too scared to speak out in public for fear of inflaming the debate.

Sunday June 26 – Day 3

EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker will chair an emergency meeting of the executive's "college" – including Britain's Jonathan Hill, officials say.

The Commission will be responsible for negotiating the divorce settlement between London and Brussels.

EU officials insist there is no "Plan B" in place for Brexit.

"The idea is to have everything ready for Monday," the EU official said.

The start of a new week on global financial markets will see investors and voters demanding answers on where Britain and the EU are heading.

Tuesday June 28 – Day 5

David Cameron will be expected to appear for dinner in Brussels.

He could notify summit chair Donald Tusk that he is triggering Article 50 of the EU – the legal basis for Britain to leave the union.

The summit will discuss quickly enacting the reform package Cameron won in March to give Britain a special deal to stem EU immigration.

Wednesday June 29 – Day 6

Leaders of the 27 other states will confer without Cameron in the room – a pattern Britons will have to get used to.

Article 50 sets a two-year limit on divorce talks. The EU must fill a Britain-sized hole in its budget and reassure millions of EU citizens living in Britain and Britons on the continent of their future rights.

EU leaders, notably Germany and France, may push for a quick show of unity on more integration.

Closer EU defence cooperation, without sceptical Britain, may be revived.

Other initiatives, aimed at blunting Marine Le Pen's far-right, eurosceptic bid for the French presidency in 2017, could include a push to stimulate job creation, especially among the young.

"Brexit or not, we have to think about what comes next," French Finance Minister Michel Sapin said before the vote.

"France will speak. Germany expects us to. We'll need to ... work together and not alienate the others from a Franco-German initiative."

What else?

All EU laws apply in Britain until two years after London starts the process to leave. Then none would apply.

Meanwhile, British lawmakers will carry on sitting in the EU parliament, Hill in the Commission.

And thousands of Britons will go on working as EU civil servants but they will have no real voice and Britain plans to renounce its EU presidency in the second half of 2017.

Estonia will come forward to start its first stint in the chair six months early.

Some also see heavy pressure to exclude British MEPs from a say on EU laws and to deprive Hill, a Cameron appointee, of his sensitive portfolio overseeing financial services regulation.

A post-Brexit relationship between Britain and the EU is the great unknown.

Many EU leaders, wary of eurosceptic voters at home, are determined Britain cannot have access to EU trade and financial markets if it wants to keep out EU workers.

"All four freedoms, or none," is how EU officials refer to free movement of goods, services, capital and labour in the EU treaty.

Others put it more even starkly: "Out means out."

New trade barriers would hurt both sides' economies but the EU fears a political "domino effect" would cost more long-term.

Brexit "breaks a taboo", Juncker says: "If others open the door, inspired by the British model, we'll see a stream of referendums, depriving the European project of all credibility."

EU law may seem clear but EU leaders, German Chancellor Angela Merkel included, are loath to see Britain go and may yet seek a way to keep it in, whatever the vote on June 23.

"Will Merkel really shut the door?" a senior EU diplomat said. "It may seem clear-cut in Brussels. But in politics, never say never."