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UK Tech Sector Reacts To Brexit: Some Anticipate Slow Down, Some Contemplate Relocation
In the aftermath of the United Kingdom voting to leave the European Union, UK's technology industry is reassessing its position, with many of them considering moving to a continental location. According to reports, Samsung, LG, and Acer have noted that the UK leaving the EU will affect their operations. From a BBC report:As news of Brexit broke, tech firms including BT, TalkTalk and software firm Sage reported share price falls. [...] "I have concerns that the local market might slow down," said Drew Benvie, founder of London-based digital agency Battenhall. From a report on The Guardian:Britain's financial technology sector is particularly hard-hit, with the prospect of losing access to European markets an unappealing one. "Fintech" has long been one of the UK's most promising growth areas, in part due to London's position as the financial capital of Europe. [...] Not one of the 14 billion-dollar tech firms based in the UK the Guardian asked said leaving the EU would be good for their business.Toby Coppel, the co-founder of venture capital firm Mosaic, said: "The next entrepreneur who's 22 years old, graduating from a technical university in Germany may, instead of moving to London to do their Fintech startup, decide to go to Berlin instead. I think that's one of the biggest concerns I have about the trajectory of the London technical ecosystem."
Because the same rich European elites who benefit from the pre-Brexit conditions will stand to benefit from those conditions mostly continuing. And they're the people in charge of the EU.
Remember Norway is more or less an EU member, shares all the benefits and pays in but has no political power in EU. Benefits cost the same whether you are a member or not. UK was never a "full member", as UK had a lot of exemptions from rules and regulations while at the same time wielding political power. Power they wielded to make a mess of EU as possible.
Not having UK in EU might be a good thing, at least we'd have a lot less of bitching and bickering over nothing. The most stupid about this, is that if UK wants the benefits they will pay now full price as they will not have any political power in EU to reduce their members fee.
The UK already had a pretty good deal, in that it basically was able to pick and choose - and even got extra concessions a few months back, in advance of the vote. At this point, further conciliation will only hurt the EU, because it will encourage other countries in the bloc to try the same, at which point, it won't be much of a bloc at all.
No, the EU is probably going to react very negatively, if only to make an example out of Britain. They'll play hardball, because economically speaking, Britain needs the other EU members more than the EU needs them (even if there will be pain all around). Look at where British trade goes now - something like 36% of it goes to major EU members. That's more than they trade with the USA and China combined (~20%), and that's aside from the fact that right now it's Britain using EU trade deals with the USA and China, not its own separate ones. The EU is going to insist that all its regulations apply to any products made in Britain that are sold in the EU, and at that point, it becomes cheaper for the manufacturers in Britain to apply the same to their domestic market. The reason the EU will do this is simple - they don't want France going "well we want our own special deal too." No, they'd rather freeze Britain out as an example.
"I see similar signs from the U.S. (300 million people), where increasing polarization suggests different groups of people (not necessarily divided along state lines) seem to have different ideas for the best way to proceed, but are getting more and more upset at each other for forcing everyone to go either one way or another."
Montesquieu believed that republics could only survive if they were small. I'm sure this was influenced by his study of the ancient Roman Republic and how it turned into an empire ruled by autocrats and generals. (See "Considerations on the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and their Decline" -- very readable and considerably shorter than Gibbon's more famous work on the subject.) The fact that tiny Switzerland is probably the most sensible republic in the West is due, in part, to its very smallness.
The Framers of the U.S. Constitution were familiar with Montesquieu; indeed, the entire point of the federal system was to (attempt to) harmonize the need for a stronger federal government to handle things like shared security and trade while still leaving considerable sovereignty to the states.
So to your point: if California wants to be the next socialist utopia with a massive welfare state and useless state-funded high-speed trains, have at it! Likewise, New Hampshire can go full libertarian. It's the whole "laboratories of democracy" concept – different ideas for different groups of people. Totally scalable regardless of population, if the federal government lets it happen, and lets states fail or succeed on their merits.
But Washington directs and influences too much of the economy, e.g., the military-industrial complex is a massive jobs and pork project for literally millions of people. The federal executive branch has so grossly overstepped its constitutional functions that it's horrifying and disgusting. Trump and Clinton would be far less dangerous to the republic if the office was considerably more modest and Americans didn't treat the President as some messianic figure who will deliver them jobs and other goodies! (Remember the days when presidential candidates ran "front porch" campaigns and submitted simple State of the Union letters to the congress instead of performing embarrassing and grandiose speeches?)
The problem in the Western World is the rolling disaster that's political and economic centralization. Brussels, Washington, the central banks, and other supporting institutions are all guilty. Among other ills, they create massive economic distortions (see the current college education bubble) and when everything inevitably explodes, they "save the day" – sort of like the fireman who burns down his own house and trumpets the great job he did later putting out the fire.
Lastly, dwell on this fact: the House of Representatives has had 435 members for almost a century, despite the massive growth in both population and size of the federal government. This means the ratio of citizens to representatives only grows more unfavorable, and at a time when it matters most! Concurrently, U.S. senators are no longer selected by state legislatures, leaving state governments without any way of directly influencing federal legislation. This is a total disaster for the federal republic and the chickens are coming home to roost.
I can't share the exact quote with you, but my girlfriend is a Dr in a London hospital department. Her lab basically tells you if you have cancer if you are one of the millions of people who live in or around London.
In her department, which requires high-end medically-skilled professionals, her boss posted after Brexit. The basic gist was "Don't worry, everyone, your cancer diagnosis will still be safe in the hands of our department consisting almost entirely of Spanish, Italian, German, French, Polish, Greek, ...... personnel for the time being".
Throughout the NHS the picture is the same. Majority EU and then Non-UK workers. Or universities. Almost all the major universities have majority non-UK lecturers and professors (which actually means something here - a professor is a much higher grade of personnel than in the US, you'll be incredibly lucky to meet a professor outside of academia).
And it's not just as simple as "things will carry on". My girlfriend came over as an EU citizen. She has "leave to remain", so she can stay and live and work in the UK. But to get permanent citizenship, she would have to marry or go through a lengthy immigration process (including a stupid test asking questions about kings and queens that I, as a natural Brit, would be baffled by). Coming out of the EU could revoke that leave to remain. Nobody's sure at the moment and we only have two years to work that out.
If that's taken away, or the paperwork involved in heinous, or even if the process that's required is overwhelmed by all the EU people working in the UK suddenly applying to stay here, then you have quite a situation that is an awful lot of effort to sit through. And they are already disgusted and feeling unwanted because of the Brexit vote.
It's like a state voting itself out of the USA. Imagine how you'd feel as the out-of-state worker who's just been voted against, made to feel unwelcome, contemplating being in a "foreign" state, and may have to jump through all kinds of hoops to carry on your normal life that you've had for YEARS.
We're going to lose an awful lot of talent, from students coming to our universities to the lecturers teaching them, from the waitresses on minimum wages to the doctors earning a fortune. And there's no way that it will become a zero-paperwork process for any of the above, which just adds costs and hassle.
We're now basically a foreign country. If you're American you may not understand that - do you have automatic right to live in any other country in the world? Because before the vote, we have had that guaranteed for decades. We can just up sticks, go to Sweden and start up a life like anyone else, without even bothering with paperwork or visas.
We've (potentially) just thrown that in the bin, which means a lot of people who found that convenient and wanted to live in Britain are now unwelcome and may be forced to leave, or put under such scrutiny that they decide to go to one of the other dozens of countries just 30 miles away, where they don't have any of that hassle.
Watch the NHS, education, and the large businesses. They're all about to suffer, even if they don't immediately collapse.
I can't share the exact quote with you, but my girlfriend is a Dr in a London hospital department. Her lab basically tells you if you have cancer if you are one of the millions of people who live in or around London.
In her department, which requires high-end medically-skilled professionals, her boss posted after Brexit. The basic gist was "Don't worry, everyone, your cancer diagnosis will still be safe in the hands of our department consisting almost entirely of Spanish, Italian, German, French, Polish, Greek, ...... personnel for the time being".
This is proof of class warfare at its best (worst): the financial elites have figured out that paying for highly skilled personnel educated in Britain was too expensive. It is much better to import highly educated but cheaper labor from abroad. Incidentally, Britain used to have effectively free higher education a couple of decades ago, but the same financial elites (who hold the real power, including political) decided that such social benefits are now unnecessary, since labor from abroad comes pre-educated.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.