4 ms·

I don't see why people are thinking businesses would move. With a weaker pound, a UK office is cheaper to run, investment will go further and exporting UK based

I don't see why people are thinking businesses would move. With a weaker pound, a UK office is cheaper to run, investment will go further and exporting UK based products/services to the EU or US will be more competitive. If anything UK might be more attractive for a business. The downsides might be freedom of travel for employment but hopefully there won't be much difference for skilled migrants. I don't believe it would get as hard as the US.

mhuffman 10y ago
> I don't see why people are thinking businesses would move. Because of all the fear-mongering and threats from the EU. Think about it, the UK could keep all policies exactly as they are right now, but the EU has threatened to "punish" them because they are not part of the group any more. I do not think the UK is going to restrict movement of skilled immigrants. This will put the EU in the unenviable position of saying to the UK, "We are not going to do business with you because you will not accept our unskilled immigrants!" The market panic is just investor withdrawal until they can see what is going to happen. As soon as the uncertainty passes, and it is obvious that the UK isn't going to rock the boat with "Trump-like" initiatives, the money will come right back.
jinushaun 10y ago
No one is saying that foreign businesses and trade will completely disappear from the UK overnight. With Brexit, London is no longer seen as a [english-speaking] doorway to the EU. Foreign companies will more likely prefer Dublin over London. For businesses, it also makes more financial sense to focus more energy on selling their product to an entire continent, instead of a tiny island. They will still have offices in the UK, and trade with the UK, but there is better ROI in trading with the EU.
markvdb 10y ago
Any idea how many EU multinational headquarters and logistics centers the UK has, versus Switzerland or Norway? Right... What about financial centers? Make no mistake. This will have a significant impact. Even my small laser cutting service company in Riga, Latvia (<shameless plug>https://lusis.eu</shameless https://lusis.eu</shameless plug>) has to charge non-EU clients extra because of the real barriers exporting outside of the EU.
- duncanawoods 10y ago
  I'm interested - what precisely are the barriers you see?
  - markvdb 10y ago
    It may sound silly, but here's a few: * extra customs checks, even if there is no customs rate * different VAT procedures from the common market * courier and postal services delivering strictly within the EU, or charging a premium for dealing with the barriers of delivering outside of it Apart from that, anecdotally, even within the EU, we noticed that UK customers were strangely much less informed about SEPA bank transfers (between € accounts, within EFTA) than even non-EU EFTA members.

mhuffman 10y ago

> I don't see why people are thinking businesses would move. Because of all the fear-mongering and threats from the EU. Think about it, the UK could keep all policies exactly as they are right now, but the EU has threatened to "punish" them because they are not part of the group any more. I do not think the UK is going to restrict movement of skilled immigrants. This will put the EU in the unenviable position of saying to the UK, "We are not going to do business with you because you will not accept our unskilled immigrants!" The market panic is just investor withdrawal until they can see what is going to happen. As soon as the uncertainty passes, and it is obvious that the UK isn't going to rock the boat with "Trump-like" initiatives, the money will come right back.

jinushaun 10y ago

No one is saying that foreign businesses and trade will completely disappear from the UK overnight. With Brexit, London is no longer seen as a [english-speaking] doorway to the EU. Foreign companies will more likely prefer Dublin over London. For businesses, it also makes more financial sense to focus more energy on selling their product to an entire continent, instead of a tiny island. They will still have offices in the UK, and trade with the UK, but there is better ROI in trading with the EU.

markvdb 10y ago

Any idea how many EU multinational headquarters and logistics centers the UK has, versus Switzerland or Norway? Right... What about financial centers? Make no mistake. This will have a significant impact. Even my small laser cutting service company in Riga, Latvia (<shameless plug>https://lusis.eu</shameless https://lusis.eu</shameless plug>) has to charge non-EU clients extra because of the real barriers exporting outside of the EU.

duncanawoods 10y ago
I'm interested - what precisely are the barriers you see?
- markvdb 10y ago
  It may sound silly, but here's a few: * extra customs checks, even if there is no customs rate * different VAT procedures from the common market * courier and postal services delivering strictly within the EU, or charging a premium for dealing with the barriers of delivering outside of it Apart from that, anecdotally, even within the EU, we noticed that UK customers were strangely much less informed about SEPA bank transfers (between € accounts, within EFTA) than even non-EU EFTA members.