London To Tech Startups: Please Don't Mind the Brexit Gap (cnet.com)

An anonymous reader writes: The UK faces a potential economic backlash from its decision to exit the European Union, but London Mayor Sadiq Khan doesn't think tech startups should be worried. Khan on Monday stopped in New York while on a goodwill tour that included visits to Montreal and Chicago. His mission: to win back the hearts of tech companies that may be turned off by Brexit. The breakup looks bleak for tech, with nearly nine out of 10 British tech leaders opposing Brexit before the June vote. And while the effects of Brexit haven't taken hold yet, Khan remains optimistic about London. The British metropolis remains Europe's hub for the technology sector, Khan said, citing a poll commissioned by London & Partners, the mayor's economic promotional company. "London's been open to people, to trade and to ideas for more than a thousand years, and that's not going to change," Khan said Monday at the Chelsea office of workspace company WeWork. The survey reached out to more than 200 US tech executives, who believe London is the best city in which to build a startup in Europe, beating out Berlin, Paris and Dublin. While Brexit means London soon won't have access to the EU's open market across the continent, US tech leaders still choose the city for its "favorable time zones and lack of language barriers," according to a statement from the mayor's office.

Comments

Re:Nobody knows yet

[Oswald McWeany]

EU is going to want to punish UK severely as a warning to others to not leave. There will be no easy access to the single market.

Re: Nobody knows yet

[Rei]

The UK makes up about 1/6th of the EU's trade. The EU makes up about 50% of the UK's trade. One side has leverage in these negotiations, and it's not the UK.

The EU has made one thing and one thing alone abundantly clear: there will not, under any circumstances, be access to the single market without corresponding free movement of people. And no, Norway doesn't have that (neither do we here in Iceland). It's one of the founding principles of the EU, and it will not be compromised on.

The UK can of course leave the EU and choose to allow free movement of people in exchange for access to the single market. Whether that's acceptable to UK voters is a whole different story. And playing by the regulations of the single market also kind of defeats the point of the whole brexit thing. Countries like Iceland and Norway still have to obey the vast majority of EU regulations - we just don't get a say in making them.

Re:Nobody knows yet

[Zocalo]

The UK isn't in Schengen, so that's moot - there's a difference between not requiring ID to cross borders (Schengen) and needed to go through EU immigation controls at the border (non-Schengen) too. Now that the EU has us over a barrel however I'm sure some of them - like the Visegrad Group, or V4, (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia) - might just try and insist that we adopt Schengen if we wish to have continued access to the EEA free trade area.

On the subject of the V4, their position does perhaps make how things are going to end up a little clearer to predict - provided that they are not just bluffing. Basically, they have promised to veto any Article 50 agreement that doesn't continue to allow free travel (with ID) for their citizens to the UK, as is currently the case. Any Article 50 agreement requires a unanamous vote in favour - all 27 remaining countries - so the only agreement V4 wil accept is a *very* soft exit, which simply won't be acceptable to Leave supporters. Likewise any extension of the two year period requires all 27 nations to agree which is equally unlikely so, two years after the UK invokes Article 50 whenever that is, it defaults to a hard exit with no trade agreements in place - the UK ceases to be member of the EU and becomes just another country with no established trade agreements in place.

That will no doubt make many in the Leave camp very happy... until the implications of having all the EU's trade treaties become null and void and WTO defaults kicking in strike home because they really, really, suck - why else would governments spend so much time negotiating treaties with each other? If we're lucky, we'll have that covered by getting an agreement to maintain the existing EU trade agreements as an interim measure as a stop gap, but if we end up in WTO defaults with one or more of our major trading partners, we're basically screwed - something even Pro-Leave groups concur with.

Re:Nobody knows yet

[AmiMoJo]

The company I work for exports a lot of stuff to the EU and the rest of the world. Exporting to the EU is much, much easier because the rules are harmonized, and so there is a lot less paperwork and dealing with import tariffs and an office in one country and server other EU member states near it easily enough. Outside the EU things get tricky, especially when trying to move hazardous materials like lithium batteries.

After Brexit our laws are likely to diverge from the EU. After all, what is the point of "taking back control" if they don't? I imagine data protection will be weakened fairly quickly, to allow for greater domestic spying and access to browsing history and email by local government and random agencies like Trading Standards. If you read the submissions made regarding the Snooper's Charter, you can see that they are chomping at the bit to violate your privacy. Human rights and employment law will be gutted too, to make us more "competitive". The race to the bottom is just getting started.

More over, we are going to have to adopt US and Chinese standards to get the trade deals we need. Being only a small player we can't dictate terms any more, we will just have to adopt their rules in much the same way as we have to adopt the EU ones.