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."

Comments

Re:Don't Panic

[NotInHere]

Well yeah there are lots of ideas in the room. One is what maybe lots of the leave campaigners would like to see, is even more extra regulations only for the UK. Basically it gets all the profits without having to give its own share. Maybe even like the TAFTA where US companies can send their genetically modified crops to the EU? I don't know that this is something the EU will want to do.

Some things are really sure though:

1. The UK will need *some* countries to trade with. If its not the EU, then maybe some other country will do.
2. If the UK is given lots of extra regulations, other countries will demand this as well, like norway, or even current EU members. In fact already now there are demands coming in from current EU members.
3. The EU is in a much better position than the UK, simply due to sheer size. Threatening with an exit is always a good tool, but once you are out you have nothing to threaten with anymore, but still all the same problems.

Well lets see what the UK will do with that extra money they don't send to the EU anymore. Anyway, if they were actually paying what other countries of their size do, they would have spared lots more, but as they already had extra regulations within the EU, the part they have available now is much smaller.

Re:Don't Panic

[unimacs]

I agree it is really early. However, it would seem to me that the EU has a built-in incentive to isolate the UK. If you can leave the EU without meaningful consequences, then the EU will collapse as other member countries start to bail.

Re:Don't Panic

[byornski]

They lost Ireland years ago. If you mean Northern Ireland, there is little impetus there to change what people are seeing as peace. Factions on the far sides might want to play it that way but it's basically not going to happen. The south was/is in a financial crisis that was solved by the UK saying we'll bankroll them and their own austerity. Norway is not in the Euro but has accepted the schengen agreement for free travel. They do not pay so much in but they get more say on domestic rights.

Re: Don't Panic

[byornski]

I'm claiming Irish citizenship through a reverse agreement. Anyone born on the island before 2005 can claim it. On a darker note, I didn't say it would bring peace. If anything it will inflame tensions in NI. Source : From NI

From what I can tell

[rsilvergun]

the trouble with Britain and America right now is that there's been 40 years of policy that benefits well educated upper middle class college grads and hurts blue collar workers. The Blue collar guys sucked it down in stride for those 40 years but it sounds like they're at their wits end. They're desperate to do _something_ but they don't know what. They've got a lot of ideology and beliefs that make it hard to go the Scandinavian Socialism route to solve their economic problems and there's no way they can compete on a global stage with slave labor let alone the coming robots. But they've got to do something Britain gets "Brexit" on over here we get Trump.

Not sure about the UK but 20 years ago phone polls would like the upper cast keep tabs on voting patters and focus their political campaigns, but now that everybody has a cell phone and you can't do polling calls to them the old political tricks aren't working. It doesn't do any good to have even unlimited funds if you don't know where to put them and you needed those phone polls to tell you what to do next. So Britain had no idea Brexit was coming (Cameron's resignation showed that) and the US is desperately trying to Stop Trump...

It's gonna get really, really messy from here on out.

Re:From what I can tell

[Solandri]

While I agree with the white/blue collar angle, there's more going on here than that. Ideally a unified economy is most efficient. Same standards, same regulations, same processes, policies, etc. promotes efficiency. A business doesn't have to jump through a dozen hoops to sell their products in multiple countries, they just have to jump through one.

Practically, a big unified economy is highly unlikely to always develop the best set of standards, regulations, processes, policies, etc. There are just too many sub-groups (national governments, states, etc.) demanding to be pleased. You throw them a bone just to get them to shut up, and it creates red tape that's really unnecessary from the viewpoint of everyone else, but now they have to comply. Multiply that by a couple dozen countries or states and that's a lot of added red tape.

So small is bad. But really big is bad too. You want a balance between the agility of striking out on your own path, and the efficiency of large size. At 500 million people, maybe the EU has just gotten too big. 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.

These differences of opinion on how best to proceed don't necessarily have to be along political lines. White vs blue collar is more or less an apolitical division. A country or union with single standards for both types of workers may not always be ideal. Whereas a country which focuses on manufacturing can prioritize policies important to blue collar workers, while a country which focuses on (say) finance can prioritize policies important to white collar workers, which results in less friction forming between the two groups.

Re:From what I can tell

[Mashiki]

You can find them all over the place. Many have also lost upwards of $20k/year because their wages were pushed down by companies bringing in 3rd world workers to do the same job. It's happened here in Canada as well, a company laid off all of their welders in the patch and replaced them with TFW's from SE-Asia. The guys were making $70k/year the new guys? $39k in turn wages were depressed when those guys went out to find new work. Two guys I met in the patch 3 years ago are making $59k now(that was 2 years ago when they found new jobs), that was the only work they could find.

So far the only skilled workers that haven't been hit are pipe fitters, machinists and mechanics(gas/diesel/jet), but they're trying really hard to push the people who live here in north america and are diesel/jet mechanics out and get TFW's or other replacements in.

Re:From what I can tell

[ultranova]

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 â" different ideas for different groups of people.

What happens when one of these collapses under the insanity of its economic idealism and the population takes refuge on the other?

The problem with the "laboratories of democracy" concept is that humans aren't lab rats and won't just quietly die in their cage if the experiment fails.

The problem in the Western World is the rolling disaster that's political and economic centralization.

First centralization ended feudalism. Then it ended the cycle of European wars that had been going on ever since Rome fell. Now the growing international economic institutions have made it all but impossible for the Great Powers to fight wars with each other, while political ones are busy closing the ozone hole and trying to deal with global warming. If this continues we'll have peace, prosperity and clean air! Oh the humanity!

Humanity has been building larger and more complex societies ever since the dawn of history. It's not a "rolling disaster", it's what lets me sit in front of my computer in a lazy Sunday morning, sipping coffee and writing this message, rather than trying to eat my maggots quietly so I'll hear when the neighbouring tribe comes to kill me for them. As far as I'm concerned, we need more, not less, centralization, since it enables life to be more than just a constant struggle for survival.

Among other ills, they create massive economic distortions (see the current college education bubble)

Education is an ill now? Perhaps you're referring to the college debt crisis caused by college education in the US being handled by for-profit private institutions rather than the state?

Re:From what I can tell

[AthanasiusKircher]

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!

Just wanted to note, since you mentioned the fall of the Roman Republic, that this sort of thing is precisely the flaw that arguably brought down the Roman Republic. The "root password" to any political system's governing structure is always appeasement of the masses. Montesquieu skips over the early elements of this story in Rome, but one of the harbingers of doom for the Roman Republic happened with the Gracchi brothers, who were some of the earliest Romans to seek radical populist reform. Concern about the rural poor and the plight of military veterans led to their attempts to circumvent many of the traditional Roman principles... including ignoring previous checks on power and re-election in their offices (Tribune of the Plebs). The Roman senators had the good sense to club Tiberius Gracchus to death.

The parallels to the Great Depression, Dust Bowl (affecting rural poor), marches of WWI veterans on Washington, and FDR's shocking election to 4 consecutive terms are just too numerous to go into a detailed comparison. After FDR's "New Deal" was repeatedly thrown out by the Supreme Court as being unconstitutional, finally the switch in time that saved nine overrode federalist principles in the Constitution that had functioned since 1789.

Now, of course the U.S. has gone on a different course than Rome did (with the upheavals under Sulla, Marius, etc.). But it's a little scary to me that the Roman Republic essentially lasted only 84 years after Tiberius Gracchus set it on the path toward ruin in 133 BC. Caesar crossed the Rubicon in 49 BC, and was effectively declared dictator for life (after a series of consecutively consulships), effectively moving the Republic into an imperialist empire.

I'll just note that FDR was elected in 1932 with populist rhetoric to overturn the old Constitutional constraints on government power. It's now 2016, 84 years later, and we have the threat of a Trump presidency, a guy who seems to view his position in the world as dictatorial to say the least.

I'm not some crazy numerologist -- just noting that the timeline between when the Constitutional breakdown started to occur and where we are now is a shocking coincidence. It's sad that the generation around the 1930s was when Latin study and Roman study of the classics really started to be expunged from school curricula. For the past several decades we've been starting out on a track toward dissolution of a Republic and toward an Empire -- something the Founders, who were very aware of Roman precedent when they designed the government, hoped to prevent. But few people know about such history anymore, so they don't see the danger.

For all you guys who like to make fun of liberal arts majors... here's why history is important to know something about: to avoid making the same mistakes others have in the past.

Re:Don't Panic

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Par for the course. Modern political elites everywhere are CRIMINALLY STUPID beyond recognition (with varying degree of idiocy). I don't blame the British people, after all you can vote however you want, against or for your own interests. Witness what happens in the good old US of A. Two generations of rednecks voting against their own interests because who the hell knows. The blame of the British disaster is 100% on Cameron and the Tory party by indicting a referendum that should never have even been contemplated in the first place. That said I don't know what's more hilarious, the brexit, the post-brexit lies or the desire for another referendum that sets the clock straight again. This is Homer Simpson kind of stupidity. It just bogles the mind.
What do the British gain post-brexit ? Dissolution sooner or later of the United Kingdom, loss of all the exceptions they had in the EU, loss of political power in the EU. I just can't wrap my mind around such a stupid disaster. It's the proverbial "cutting off the nose to spite the face". From now on I can never again consider a British subject as an intelligent person. Not after what they have done to themselves. The British Empire is over guys, maybe that news still hasn't reached your wretched island. Always always blame the damn mail.

Re:Don't Panic

[LSD-OBS]

From now on I can never again consider a British subject as an intelligent person. Not after what they have done to themselves.

I'm British and I have been trying to explain exactly the same fucking points as listed by you, but these people really are too stupid to understand what's in their own best interests. What's even worse, most of the people in the Remain camp were themselves too busy breathing through their mouths to actually mount an intellectually sound defense against some of the absolute bullshit proferred by the Leavers.

So I'm kinda with you on this.

Re:Scotland and Ireland can't separate

[Anonymous Coward]

Scotland would be loaded with 130 billion pounds of debt.

Which they could pay off comparatively quickly because they have most of the UK's oil. That's true despite falling oil prices.

Scotland's ledger will start looking much healthier than that of the rest of the UK once they leave, despite inheriting a proportion of the UK's shared debt. It's the rest of the UK whose national debt should be a source of concern, not Scotland's.

Control the borders

[backslashdot]

Why have a border? What is the purpose of a border? It is to keep people out because you think they are evil, will drink the milk out the bottle from your fridge, look ugly and smell bad too. Why should poor countries be stuck with keeping the bad people when they would do more damage? At least the richer countries can catch the criminals and jail them or something.

Gotta look out for "your own" .. but is that even moral? Does God value the human life of a person in one country over another? You can allow the deaths of thousands to save a few of your own? How is that moral?

Why would you lock yourself out of interacting with foreigners? That will only breed mutual hatred and an arms race. Keeping people out is not sustainable. Eventually the other countries will want in. And there will be a big war. . Eventually there will be a war, that is guaranteed. At some point you are going to want something from another country and they will refuse to give it to you. Or vice versa. They will want something of yours, you will refuse to give it .. and they will try to take it. Then you will war.

The only sustainable future for humanity is for everyone to get along with each other. This is only possible through interaction, through everyone understanding the concepts of free speech, freedom of religion, right to a fair trial before punishment, right not to be tortured etc.

Its true a lot of third worlders don't understand these concepts, and you are afraid they will bring it to your country. But how does isolating these countries help? How will they learn these ideas if not through interaction? If you are cool with them never learning the values of freedom, eventually they will war. They will be ruled by dictators who build big weapons and will eventually try to take your stuff by force .. it may take 50 years or 100 .. but they will .. and with the nukes of today if even a few get through it's devastating.

Ever noticed that all the places that have ancient border walls are now tourist attractions that you can visit from both sides and still be in the sea country. It's not like the Great Wall of China or Emperor Hadrian's wall demarcates a border to this day .. What we have are failed empires.

Can and very likely will separate

[Roger W Moore]

Scotland would be loaded with 130 billion pounds of debt.

...and by the time this epic cluster fuck is resolved that won't be worth anything like as much as it is today will it? Besides if they got independence and offered Scottish citizenship in exchange for giving up British citizen I expect there would be a significant fraction of the 16 million predominantly well educated Brits who would happily take them up on the offer to regain EU citizenship and that would provide a massive boost to their economy.

Re:Don't Panic

[JaredOfEuropa]

Exactly what they're saying in Brussels; they are bent on "digging fire corridors" as they call it: make the most dire economic consequences a reality, in order to make an example out of Britain. Thankfully a few national European leaders have already objected and said that the Brexit is to be conducted in an orderly fashion and on friendly terms. Which makes sense: isolating Britain is going to hurt the EU as well, in a big way.

Re:Considering our office in Newcastle...

[ledow]

And yet the population of Britain hasn't grown that much past projections since 1970.

Under EU employment law, we actually DO discriminate on language skills. That's another "absolute bollocks" rumour. Doctors and qualified medical professionals - and especially those from outside the UK - are required to sit tests or demonstrate competency on this exact requirement, in fact. The EU does not affect that at all, and certainly the French would be up in arms against such a law first as they are much more protective of their language.

Agreed on the welfare support, however, but that's not a problem that Brexit fixes. As you say, many other EU countries do just what we need to do.

But if a migrant worker can do a qualified or professional job, pay tax, get paid and still have enough send enough home, who the hell are we to get in their way or say they shouldn't be in the country? Freeloaders, yes, but again, why are "British" freeloaders okay but "EU" ones not? Get rid of them all by changing welfare criteria.

It's possible the UK will recognise my girlfriend as a citizen, but it's by no means guaranteed. The guarantee that existed as an EU member is gone. That affects career decisions. If she gets offered a job back in her home country, it's going to be taken account of. The problem, again, is not the EU or lack of it. It's the complete lack of any official statement, or clear process, to solve the problem.

You could announce THIS SECOND that all current workers in certain sectors would be given permanent leave to remain. But they haven't. Such confusion is going to lose workers as offers change each side of the Channel in the next two years.

Delay, confusion and uncertainty is what we've voted for, over stability, clarity and ALWAYS still having the option of negotiating or leaving at a later date. Exiting is - for the next generation at least - a one way trip.

Re:Don't Panic

[thegarbz]

Remain camp were themselves too busy breathing through their mouths to actually mount an intellectually sound defense against some of the absolute bullshit proferred by the Leavers.

This right here should have been a warning sign to all. The summary of the debate so far:

Remain: We have what we have now more or less. Leaving could be better, but could be worse we just don't know and it's risky.
Leave: INDEPENDENCE DAY. Kick out the immigrants. Save squillions of pounds that we can feed into a healthcare system we don't actually believe in (remember who is running this campaign). Fuck the EU. Rise up against those anti-democratic overloards. We're sooo much better than them. Don't listen to experts, we don't need those damn experts. *Froths at the mouth*.

Without any political knowledge or skin in the game, these debates alone should have made people vote remain. If there was a good reason to leave then you wouldn't need all the hyperbole and to some extent blatant lies, and the leave camp should have stood up on it's merits. It didn't.

Re:Don't Panic

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that the UK needs the EU more than the opposite based on market size alone. The EU does not have to go soft on the UK and send a clear message to its members.

Re:Don't Panic

[MrL0G1C]

Switzerland, one of the EU's wealthiest economies with a very strong economy voted to leave Schengen in 2014. And it's outside of the EU. And it just said last week that it's no longer interested in joining the EU.

And France rejected the EU, And The Netherlands rejected the EU. And Iceland ripped up it's EU application.

This institution is the institution that gave us TTIP, the treaty that would give corporations the right to sue any EU government that introduces legislation that effects it's profits even when that government is legislating to protect workers rights or the environment or public services or food standards. When did I ever get to vote for them?

Re: Don't Panic

[An dochasac]

I'm claiming Irish citizenship through a reverse agreement. Anyone born on the island before 2005 can claim it. On a darker note, I didn't say it would bring peace. If anything it will inflame tensions in NI. Source : From NI

You'd better check your sources. Ireland's Citizenship referendum ended Irish citizenship by birth in 2005 after a campaign reminiscent of UKIP's xenophobic frothing at the mouth. Tax-funded RTE and the Irish newspapers played up rumors of hundreds of "non-national" anchor babies being born in Dublin airport every day, just as state media, BBC decided to report scary UK immigration statistics on election day. Contrary to popular belief, public funding of broadcasting doesn't magically make it less biased than the US corporate-owned media, the BBC used TV licenses from white and non-white British citizens to fund shows such as George Mitchell's Black and White Minstrel show until the late 1970s.

Ireland's citizenship referendum didn't do as much damage as the Brexit vote because sensible heads in Dáil Éireann interpreted that populist vote as slightly less tyranny of the majority than the majority would have preferred. A grandfather rule allowed parents of Irish born children born before 2005 to have the equivalent of a dodgy green card, with expensive renewals every three years via a chaotic and draconian bureaucracy, proof that we are supporting ourselves and proof that we had not committed ANY crimes (we had to submit documentation of any parking tickets and speeding fines.) This was not citizenship, it was limbo and I wouldn't wish it on anyone. If you've found a short-cut to Irish citizenship, don't tell the others who've wasted years, spent thousands of Euro and presented their first born child (I kid you not.) They will tell you to get to the back of the queue.

Let's hope Britain's parliament has as much courage to do the right thing despite what mob democracy prescribes. Referendums would have kept institutionalized slavery and segregation well into the 21st century.

Re:Don't Panic

[Dunbal]

The skids have been greasing for a long time. However unlike what Jean Claude Jucker and his massive ego proposes, I don't believe for one minute that it's the "EU" that has prevented another European catastrophe. Minor other points like perhaps NATO, nuclear weapons and the promise of mutually assured destruction have had much, MUCH more influence and will continue to do so.

In fact one could argue that the EU which was already well underway in the 1990's did nothing to prevent say, the Balkan crisis... again NATO fixed that problem. And NATO will continue to fix problems. Because NATO is stronger than any single European nation. It is the proverbial club to beat the rest back into line, when it's not pretending that the Russians are coming.