Cameron and Osborne sound increasingly like indoctrinated members of a religious cult who will spout anything to remain on message.
I have concluded that the EU is pretty similar to a religious cult. It is exclusivist, it proselytises in order to gain new members and it threatens to punish deserters.
The government is doing us a disservice by talking up the threat of leaving. If they remained calm and neutral, and instead emphasised the importance of democratic principles above all else then there would be far less likelihood of a problem. The EU is a human construct. It will rise and fall like everything else. The important thing is to see the fall before it comes and give it a soft landing.
In the event of an exit, I think a blip in share prices is probable. Some big international firms may also explore whether they need a stronger foothold in Europe, but they are likely to remain cautious until the terms of exit are sorted because the Eurozone is an ongoing mess. We are a huge market in and of ourselves and we have well established trading relationships all over the world. I am confident that we can flourish outside the EU even if Juncker succeeds in his threat to enforce punitive measures agains us.
And we have to ask ourselves how other people across Europe would respond to punitive measures against us. Juncker might think that they would gloat with him, or that he might succeed in suppressing the rise of nationalism. I think it is highly likely that punishing us for exercising our democratic will to leave would backfire quite spectacularly.