Before the vote:

Mood: Common sense will prevail, surely.

During the vote:

After the vote:

Mood: You bloody fucking idiots. What have you gone and done now…

Shares plunged and the pound plummeted to a 31-year low as panicked traders reacted to the UK’s vote to leave the EU and the prospect of recession amid months of market turmoil. The FTSE 100 tumbled 530 points, or 8.4%, within the first few minutes of trading. That mirrored sharp losses for the pound overnight as investors sold sterling on the back of growing worries about the UK’s economic outlook.

Expect action from the Bank of England to calm the markets. Having highlighted the risks of a leave vote, it will now be the job of BoE and the Treasury to show that they are in charge of events. That may be difficult in the short term, because while the overnight sell-off was in part the result of traders being caught with their trousers down, it was not the only factor. There were four other reasons for the dramatic reaction.

Firstly, Britain is facing a political crisis. It is hard to see how David Cameron can survive the referendum result. George Osborne threatened to deliver an austerity budget if the electorate refused to listen to his warnings. The chancellor is unlikely to be around for long enough to deliver it.

Secondly, Britain is facing a constitutional crisis. Scotland voted decisively for remain, while England outside of London voted for leave. It will not be long before the Scottish National party is demanding another referendum so that an independent Scotland would be able to stay in the European Union.

Thirdly, Britain’s vote has massive implications for Europe. It will embolden other separatist movements across the continent and could lead to other countries voting to leave. Clearly, there will also be consequences for the eurozone, which dodged a bullet last year when Greece remained within monetary union. Brexit will have far bigger consequences, so watch shares in Germany and France tumble on Friday. The pound will fall much further against the dollar than it will against the wounded euro.

Fourthly, Britain now has to decide what sort of arrangement it wants to have with the EU. Does it want to remain part of the single market even if that means accepting free movement of labour? Or does it want to go for a complete go-it-alone approach, which would give the new government a freer hand on immigration?

The result speaks volumes about the state of modern Britain. For the better off, a vote to remain was the obvious thing to do. For the less well-off, a vote to leave was their chance to protest about badly paid jobs, zero-hour contracts, bullying employers, and a sense that they had been forgotten.

These economic problems are deep-seated and of long-standing. Most of them have little to do with Europe. But the referendum has given millions of unhappy people a chance to protest. This is a country divided by wealth, geography and class.

Update: If things weren’t already bad enough, we now hear that Brexit has been endorsed by Fake-Tan-Howler-Monkey-In-Chief Trump as a yooooge thing:

He said: “I think it’s a great thing that happened, an amazing vote, very historic. We’re very happy.”

Asked why people voted for Brexit, he said: “People are angry. All over the world they’re angry.”

Asked if he took heart from the result for his own campaign, Mr Trump said: “We’re doing very well in the United States and essentially the same thing is happening in the United States. “They are angry over borders, they are angry over people coming into the country and taking over and nobody even noticing. They are angry about many, many things.”

In terms of what people were specifically to specify where people were angry, he said: “The UK, the US, many other places. It will not be the last.”

The billionaire mogul predicted the divisions caused by the referendum would “heal” and said it would bode well for his campaign. “You know I said this would happen. I think it is a great thing. We will see but I think it will be a great thing. Basically, they took their country back,” he said.

Update 2: At least the UK retains some of its sense of humour: