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Britain's Scientists Are 'Freaking Out' Over Brexit (washingtonpost.com)
"To use a nonscientific term, the scientists in the country are freaking out," reports the Washington Post. An anonymous Slashdot reader quotes their report:
The researchers worry that Britain will not replace funding it loses when it leaves the E.U., which has supplied about $1.2 billion a year to support British science, approximately 10 percent of the total spent by government-funded research councils. There is a whiff of panic in the labs.
Worse than a possible dip in funding is the research community's fear that collaborators abroad will slink away and the country's universities will find themselves isolated. British research today is networked, expensive, competitive and global. Being part of a pan-European consortium has helped put Britain in the top handful of countries, based on the frequency of citations of its scientific papers... Anecdotal evidence suggests that headhunters may already be circling.
Meanwhile, NPR reports that Britain's vote to leave the EU "has depressed the value of the British pound," prompting many Britons to vacation at home rather than abroad -- while "Americans will find their dollars go further in Britain these days." And an anonymous Slashdot reader quotes a report from CNBC that Ford "is considering closing plants in the UK and across Europe in response to Britain's vote to leave the EU, as it forecast a $1 billion hit to its business over the next two years."
Worse than a possible dip in funding is the research community's fear that collaborators abroad will slink away and the country's universities will find themselves isolated. British research today is networked, expensive, competitive and global. Being part of a pan-European consortium has helped put Britain in the top handful of countries, based on the frequency of citations of its scientific papers... Anecdotal evidence suggests that headhunters may already be circling.
Meanwhile, NPR reports that Britain's vote to leave the EU "has depressed the value of the British pound," prompting many Britons to vacation at home rather than abroad -- while "Americans will find their dollars go further in Britain these days." And an anonymous Slashdot reader quotes a report from CNBC that Ford "is considering closing plants in the UK and across Europe in response to Britain's vote to leave the EU, as it forecast a $1 billion hit to its business over the next two years."
Well, perhaps we could find a better way to hand out grants to scientists, so we don't end up wasting it. I mean there's the Replication Crisis to consider, and the Decline Effect, and then somewhere north of 40,000 neurology papers that were a waste of time (not all British of course).
I think Ford are closing plants all over the place. Their sales are weaker in the USA and China too, which is absolutely nothing to do with Brexit, although Brexit is a wonderful excuse for useless executives to hang their poor performance on.
Maybe next time walk the streets in time. If you can't be bothered with politics, politics can't be bothered with you. Britain dialed itself backwards one generation. Which is not the worst time to be in unless you want to be at the forefront of anything. Which would be the point of most scientific research. So obviously scientists had a world to lose but you would not have noticed it. And in absence of respectable input they could trust, the voters basically were back to gambling on buzzphrases.
in Britain should be freaking out about the brexit.
As a convinced European I find it highly amusing that the main "leave" campaign guys are now running away and officially stating that they have no idea what they actually planned (Yeah, we heavily lied in order to get you to approve a plan which we don't have, because it does not make any deeper sense).
I hope that the EU gives them choice between coming back without any special status, joining the Euro and the Schengen zone or remaining in "splendid isolation". In case of the latter: not terrible for the rest of the EU - one competitor is gone, and in 30 years there will be a new developing country with cheap labor.
What a long pile of stupid delusions.
... the piece in the Washington Post is long on opinion and *very* short on fact.
For example, the piece makes much of comments by Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell, president of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, that one third of the teaching staff in Edinburgh hold EU passports and are "very twitchy right now". Well, that's real science, right there, eh? I mean, that's an empirical survey if ever there was one.
What the British Government has said (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-36916836) is that it wants and expects to protect the rights of EU workers currently living in Britain, but that such protections would be conditional upon EU countries providing the same protections for UK citizens living in the EU. That doesn't seem reasonable, but it doesn't explain the scaremongering attempted by the Washington Post.
I guess it is worth pointing out that President Obama and the US Administration were very much in favour of the UK remaining within the EU. Washington saw the UK membership of the EU as a lever it could apply to get the EU to go along with things like TTIP and joint military participation with operations like those in Afghanistan and Iraq.
In other words, you have to treat this article in exactly the same way that a scientist would treat a claim that some random sub-atomic particle could travel faster than the speed of light: look for substantiating evidence; look for corroboration; examine the sources of evidence; look at the statistical significance of the sampled data, and so on.
This rather shoddy article contains a lot of supposition, suggestion and conjecture, but it has been very selective in it's reporting of "facts".
Nothing to see here. Move along, move along.
Benefit in terms of trade? UK has a 25 billion deficit with the EU, it trades at a LOSS with the EU.
That was kind of the main thrust of the Brexit arguments... why pay 10.5 billion net to access a market to pay another 25 billion in losses? Likewise the claim that UK won't have a free trade agreement with the EU doesn't make sense. The tariffs on trade with the EU are less than the 10.5 billion we pay.... i.e. even if it had to subsidize industry due to EU imposing tariffs it would still be better off. But EU would be shooting itself in the foot to block access to the UK, and give up 25 billion ontop of the 10.5 billion it will already be losing.
"The brexiter's argument (when not lying) was that they'd rather be poorer with fewer immigrants"
You seem to want to change the subject, on trade and money terms, UK will be far better off. Even the fall in the pound mentioned should help exports of services (UK's main export group).
Please stick to talking about Brexit, if you know anything about it. It's clear that you know nothing about Y2K.
Y2K passed off with barely a whimper because millions of software engineers around the planet took it seriously and worked their asses off for a good 6 months to make their software cope with the year ticking over to 2000. Code that would break was found absolutely everywhere, and quite astounding budgets had to be mobilized to fix everything in time. Additional contractors were engaged almost around the clock at extortionate rates in the final months, because there was so much code to remedy.
So yeah, Y2K went off very quietly, but no thanks to you. The thanks go to all the engineers who worked ridiculous hours to keep the systems you rely on from falling apart.
And what does popularism get you? A deep and long depression, unemployment and no less immigrants.
Absolutely. The biggest worry is that the government maintains the same level of immigration to keep business costs (i.e. wages) low, but that without the preference to European countries that means more Muslims - with the consequent increase of child rape gangs, terrorist acts, "honour" killings, no-go-areas etc.
We don't trade at a loss with the EU, we are in a state of trade deficit because we buy more from the EU than we sell. I'm at a trade deficit with the local supermarket because I do all my grocery shopping there and they don't buy anything from me.
Losing/reducing the EU market would only be a good thing if we could source the goods we import from the EU more cheaply elsewhere, whilst at the same time either maintaining our exports or selling elsewhere at a better price or volume.
The sort of logic that presents a trade deficit as "25 billion in losses" is the kind of faulty thinking that landed the UK in this mess in the first place, and why most people weren't remotely able to cast an educated vote.
As a whole, the country paid more than it got back. Scientists, on the other hand, got a "good" deal.
Though it certainly did come with a lot of strings attached. Leaving aside the fact that all scientists became paid lobbyists for the EU, much of that "research" money had to be spent on specific things, such as travel and meetings, and all of the "research" that was actually carried out had to be done in accordance with the EU's rules, which were mainly focused on the production of detailed status reports known as "work packages". An EU-funded research project would produce a tonne of paperwork, lots of office politics, and very little actual science.
Sort of like most bureaucratic organizations. It's not surprising the same thing happens on this side of the pond.
I will make an observation, those at the top of the food chain on both sides aren't the best at advancing science but rather navigating the politics of their respective funding bodies and insuring compliance with minutiae of bureaucracy.
Those are the same people that will be out in the cold with Brexit. Not surprising they would be upset.
Both staying and leaving were awful options, but those are the only two options that were given by people that only wanted to use it as a pressure tool, not expecting leave to actually win.
The "actually fix EU" option was never on the table.
It might result in fewer immigrants. Or, at least, fewer immigrants with marketable skills. We saw this a decade or so back when the Polish economy improved and a load of Polish plumbers decided to go back there, leaving the UK with a skills shortage. There still aren't enough British plumbers to make up the shortfall, but we've benefitted from importing them from other countries so plumbing work is now only very expensive to get done and not totally extortionate.
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Trade will continue on as it has - the EU sends more to UK than UK sends to EU, so the EU is net worse off if it starts implementing tarriffs
Only if you completely ignore the relative sizes of the UK & EU GDPs and overall exports. Guess what, absolute numbers need context. A simple way of looking at it is "who would be hit hardest if UK-EU trade stopped overnight".
In 2015, the UK exported 220 billion GBP to the EU, whereas it imported 290 billion GBP. That is 44% of the UK's exports went to the EU, whereas 8-17% of the EU's exports went to the UK, so the UK would be a bigger loser.
As a percentage of GDP, the UK's EU exports made up about 10% of its GDP (2 trillion GBP), whereas the EU's UK exports made up a mere 2% of its GDP (12 trillion GBP).
Source: https://fullfact.org/europe/uk...
No rational political actor would trigger article 50
43% of UK business happens with the EU.
UK industry requires the large inflow of people to feed the economic beast.
Research funding and participation.
The EU as an entity cannot give a departing UK a sweetheart deal.
Northern Ireland - the UK is party to a bilateral peace agreement in NI - with the Republic of Ireland - that is literally written into the Irish constitution - based on EU membership of both states - it cannot unilaterally rescind this agreement without breaking international law. The EU is not simply about the single market.
Scotland - whatever about a recent YouGov poll - actually invoking article 50 will most certainly precipitate a Scottish secession vote.
The Pound is at a 35 year low against the dollar and article 50 hasn't even been invoked - the pound would crater to parity (and everybody knows it).
The economic impact is only starting to take its toll on the UK - give it a year and the public WILL be ready to reverse the vote.
The city (name for London's financial sector) accounts for about 10% of UK GDP cannot effectively compete in the EU single market - with the UK on the outside (get serious).
Only a bunch of self-styled 'swashbuclking men of the world' in the Tory party and out-and-out racists in UKIP/BNP are really 'bought into' Brexit - for (largely) English nostalgist/nationalist reasons. The rest - are simply registering a protest vote.
Virtually every mainstream politician and business voice still supports the UK staying in the EU. Added to which many businesses are public stating that investment will not happen or has been redirected to other EU countries as a result of the Brexit vote. The only way to arrest the rot is to secure the UK's membership of the EU - triggering article 50 would simply pour rocket fuel on a economic fire that would blaze for a decade... and the political and bureaucratic establishment KNOWS it.
Bottom line - no responsible government would actually trigger article 50. The likely (though not guaranteed) outcome is some huffing and puffing over the next year or so, and then some mechanism that allows the UK to remain in the EU with some fudge on migration concocted by the EU (think temporary derogation on 2004 EU accession countries).
It is common courtesy to write some text around your links, or at least make them clickable via some basic html.
But nevermind that. The point of your links is that the UK does send about 8 billion pounds to the EU every year (much less than the 18 billion claimed by the Leavers), which is true. But the question to ask is whether this is just money burned, or is it an investment that pays off. In other words, is the extra money the UK makes from being in the EU more than 8 billion an year?
Well, given that the UK's GDP is about 1800 billion pounds, and that the pounds lost about 10% of its value since the Brexit referendum, the UK is already 180 billion bounds poorer. France has immediately overtaken it as the 5th largest economy in the aftermath of the referendum. This suggests that the contribution to the EU budget is just chump change compared to the value of being in the EU.
entropy happens
"Europe is stuffed full of old people"
OK, let's go with this for a minute.
"when they clog up the political system"
In other words, when a representative government represents the interests of its own people? WTF? Are you actually criticizing this?
" Europe should be busy trying to bring in young skilled workers from these places"
Europe is busy importing millions of unskilled people from hostile lands who have nothing to contribute but votes for statists.
"also encouraging young people to procreate"
This is precisely what the EU doesn't want. In Germany this is known as "volkisch" behavior and it is regarded as pure racism.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
"I assume everyone who disagrees with me is a racist. This makes it much easier for me to assume a moral high ground and dismiss their opinions and experiences out of hand without engaging." -everyone who voted to stay
I can see why you people do this. It's very easy and conveinient!
Virtually everything you read about Brexit in the media before and after the referendum has been FUD.
Britain was one of the world's most prosperous, safe, and culturally advanced nations for over a thousand years.
I'm sure they will do just fine as they watch the EU collapse under the weight of their open borders policies
Y2K passed off with barely a whimper because millions of software engineers around the planet took it seriously and worked their asses off for a good 6 months to make their software cope with the year ticking over to 2000.
Much of that work was frankly unnecessary. Not all the code was fixed on time and some countries spent very little on Y2K remediation (South Korea, Italyand yet they experienced very few problems. Millions of small businesses did virtually zero remediation and yet they experienced virtually zero problems. While I'm not arguing that all the remediation was useless (much was definitely necessary) the problem was definitely blown out of proportion and there is copious evidence to support that assertion.
Additional contractors were engaged almost around the clock at extortionate rates in the final months, because there was so much code to remedy.
That was because large companies were worried about liability if by some chance something should go wrong. Consulting companies made a ton of money selling Y2K remediation to credulous executives for several years before the actual year 2000 arrived. Basically they were buying expensive insurance for a problem that they didn't fully understand.
The thanks go to all the engineers who worked ridiculous hours to keep the systems you rely on from falling apart.
Those engineers got paid to work those hours. You make it sound as if it was some heroic sacrifice on their part. Never mind that it was (mostly other) software engineers that created the problem in the first place by utilizing bad programming practices over the preceding decades.
"Seriously Remainiacs are some of the dumbest people I've ever met." says the person who believed Johnson, Gove, Farage, Daily Mail, Daily Express... my god, you must be embarrassed, if not, you should be
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
Britain was one of the world's most prosperous, safe, and culturally advanced nations for over a thousand years.
That's no guarantee that it will remain so. The British Empire is a shadow of what it was just 100 years ago.
I'm sure they will do just fine as they watch the EU collapse under the weight of their open borders policies
If the EU collapses for any reason it won't be because of their border policies. The thing most likely to cause the EU to fail is the problem of fixed exchange rates within the currency union. In a single country like the US, capital and labor can flow relatively freely to where it is needed when there are imbalances between regions. But since the EU is comprised of sovereign countries when you get a region in financial distress (see Greece) they have the problem of effectively having fixed exchange rates between sovereign states with more limited labor and capital mobility.
If Greece was still on the drachma, their exchange rate would have adjusted in response to the economic problems. But since they effectively had a fixed exchange rate, they get the problems of a fixed exchange rate. It's not clear that the EU can manage this problem in the long term. Note the already tense and clumsy response to the Greek bailouts. If a bigger economy within the EU (say Spain or France), were to run into similar problems the problem might become too large to handle.
I'm not saying the EU will collapse but if anything causes it to, it most likely will be the failure of the monetary union rather than immigration policy.
Britain was one of the world's most prosperous, safe, and culturally advanced nations for over a thousand years.
So was Greece. And Rome. And Egypt.
no its really not racist
Nationalist , but not racist. That word literally has no meaning after the past decade
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same