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As a brit, it's strange to see how it's being spun here. The majority of people voted to leave the EU and to regain independence. There will be a little volati

As a brit, it's strange to see how it's being spun here. The majority of people voted to leave the EU and to regain independence. There will be a little volatility until some facts about how that divorce happens, emerge. Long term, we now have control of our future. In terms of startups though, the EU is there to serve big businesses and powerful establishment. It's there to hinder startups and small businesses. If you're pro-small business, then you should be excited about the opportunities we have now. And can anyone on here really stand up for the idiotic cookie law? Can you stand up for the "html link tax"? That's just the tip of the iceberg with the meddling from the EU.

coderdude 10y ago
Good for the grandmother country to break out on its own. I've never had a high opinion of the EU. Mostly because of their ridiculous laws about the internet. I'm happy about this and I hope it works out well.
- gambiting 10y ago
  There is a good chance that Theresa May becomes the next MP, and if she does, British internet will be much worse than anything you can find inside the EU - she already tried cracking down on open internet multiple times. If anything, EU would have protected UK from such stupid ideas.
  - coderdude 10y ago
    Like I said, I hope the best for them. You can throw political propaganda at me all day long but I respect them for leaving.
    - gambiting 10y ago
      How is discussing possible options propaganda? And no, I have no respect for anyone who voted leave,they have fucked millions of people today without any plan how to improve things long term. If there was a plan,I would admire leavers for thinking long term - but there's nothing there.
  - volatilitish 10y ago
    > There is a good chance that Theresa May becomes the next MP No, there isn't. Seriously, where are you getting your information from? Are you from the UK? There isn't a chance in hell Theresa May would even get shortlisted.
    - gambiting 10y ago
      Not a chance you say? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-36618738 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-36618738
- dave_sullivan 10y ago
  I've never had a high opinion of a divided Europe, mostly because of the two world wars that started there. The problems driving the brexit will not suddenly get better now. I'll put it this way: has economic isolationism ever made a country better off in the history of history? I can't think of a time.
  - coderdude 10y ago
    It's not like all of trade is going to stop there. Isolationism, more like sensationalism.
  - volatilitish 10y ago
    Do you think the breakup of the USSR was a good thing?
    - dave_sullivan 10y ago
      Ah, that's a good question. Yes and no. Yes because there were deep systemic problems with the government and economy of the USSR at the time and the breakup was an inevitable result of the powers that be doing the wrong thing for so many years while business and some of the most productive citizens fled to Europe and the US. We're seeing the same thing right now in Venezuela, although Venezuela was never the world's second superpower. Also, Russia's biggest gains (and maybe what saved them after the collapse?) was energy in the form of oil and gas. Venezuela too. If alternative, readily available energy sources take off, this makes natural reserves of oil and gas less useful. Again, we're seeing all this play out now. No because here we are today. The brexit and weakening of the EU will only strengthen Russia. Why support the EU over Russia? The EU, afaik, does not kill reporters and dissenters. That says a lot about a political organization's philosophy right there. In general, I think it would be great if everyone on the planet lived in some kind of operationally transparent, porous, federated political structure, and Britain's involvement in the EU was a big step in that direction (which still had many steps to go). This is a step backwards. Meanwhile, today's Russia would do a lot better if they tried a carrot instead of a stick. In any case, now is not the time for leaders to get up from the table and walk away, it doesn't lead anywhere good.
illumin8 10y ago
If you think the full on collapse of the UK banking system, and the mass exodus of financial jobs isn't going to instantly dry up any startup funding in the UK, you're kidding yourself. Large companies in the UK are already announcing their intention to move thousands of jobs to Germany or Ireland.
- dr_ick 10y ago
  > full on collapse of the UK banking system Hyperbole much? Stop with the fear mongering. Also, which "large companies" have announced they are moving? Source?
  - illumin8 10y ago
    http://www.bbc.com/news/business-36623723 http://www.bbc.com/news/business-36623723 "American banks JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley are able to sell to the rest of Europe from London under special "passporting" arrangements. Even before the negotiations with the EU begin, both have said they may need to move staff to the EU to serve their European customers. JP Morgan alone has warned up to 4,000 jobs could leave the UK. Airbus employs 15,000 people in the UK and chief executive Tom Enders said. "This is a lose-lose result for both Britain and Europe. We will review our UK investment strategy, like everybody else will."
    - dr_ick 10y ago
      So no companies have announced they are moving. They are evaluating the situation, as any responsible corporation should. The UK banking system is not about to collapse.
      - justin66 10y ago
        London will give up its position as "world financial capital," I would think. That always seemed a bit odd, and now that they're losing one of their main advantages...
        deleted 10y ago
Scirra_Tom 10y ago
> If you're pro-small business, then you should be excited about the opportunities we have now. Such as? Please elaborate. One thing we can look forwards to is paying VAT to every EU country individually. That's going to be fun.
- x5n1 10y ago
  Yes right now. This can be fixed without giving up sovereignty. Many things that the EU is supposed to be solve can be solved via individual treaties. There is no need to give away the farm to get small benefits. At the end of the day the world is better off without conglomeration of power. Any of them are a bad idea. Individual treaties for problem points are the way to go.
  - Scirra_Tom 10y ago
    Conglomeration of power is very useful in some situations. For example, global environmental problems. Have one conglomerate force everyone to do better. If each country acted independently, each country is incentivised to not think about the bigger picture and act in their own short term interests. This was my main reason for voting in.
    - x5n1 10y ago
      It can go the other way as well. If you have a large conglomeration of power it's easy for a few people with capital to take over and make all the rules and potentially destroy the environment. See the United States for an example of this, especially in terms of fracking. People who don't necessarily suffer due to bad policy but profit from it. For instance this quote from the Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_fracturing_in_the_United_States#Environmental_and_health_impact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_fracturing_in_the_Un... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_fracturing_in_the_United_States#Environmental_and_health_impact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_fracturing_in_the_Un... "A majority of the EPA's Scientific Advisory Board advised the EPA to scale back proposed toxity testing of fracking chemicals, and not pursue development of tracer chemicals to be added to frack treatments, because of time limitations. Chesapeake Energy agreed with the recommendation." Conglomerations of power benefit people with power the most. That can be a positive or a negative depending on what policies those people want to pursue.
pisarzp 10y ago
It's not that simple. At least now you had one set of rules, and under them you could've operated in whole EU by passporting your licence. Now there will be two separate ones. If you want to expand from UK, or vice-versa enter UK, you need to do twice as much work in terms of regulations. This is especially applicable for fintech startups, which are very prominent in UK.
_audakel 10y ago
"Although there have been some recent minor steps in a positive direction concerning copyright in the EU, politicians have been trying to undermine them with really terrible ideas. We already covered the push to effectively outlaw outdoor photography,"
vonnik 10y ago
Independence is a mirage, as is control. No individual nor country in the world is independent. We are all interdependent on one another, and ever more so as the movement of data, goods and people accelerates. The EU is a framework is facilitate that interdependence, and while it has many faults, it was created to prevent another world war and in that it has succeeded. Great Britain's future is very dependent on the decisions of its neighbors and trade partners, and it has just told those neighbors and trade partners to go to hell. The EU will make the UK pay a price for Brexit, and rightly so, otherwise all member states would leave and still enjoy the free movement of goods and people. Every power structure is co-optable by large corporations and special interests. The Leave leaders are no different. You have swapped out one regrettable elite for another, much as the former British colonies nations did mid-century. There are many problems "independence" doesn't solve, and dealing with special interests is one of them. Best of luck.
- searine 10y ago
  >It was created to prevent another world war and in that it has succeeded. As if. It was created as an amalgamation of post-war globalist trade deals. The EU administrative bodies were tacked on later to make it palatable as a governing body. It's not inherently bad that an organization is founded on trade, but don't shit on my plate and call it pudding.
  - Scirra_Tom 10y ago
    > It was created as an amalgamation of post-war globalist trade deals. To deincentivise countries going to war with each other...
    - djschnei 10y ago
      No, free trade did that. The EU does not have a patent on free trade. In fact, they are pretty horrible at it.
      - masklinn 10y ago
gambiting 10y ago
I run a small company trading between UK and two other EU countries. This is a disaster - I remember back when you had to pay import duties in countries that haven't joined the EU yet, and basically with razor thin margins, the added cost of bureaucracy would collapse the company now. I'm already considering switching suppliers from UK to Germany, which of course means that UK economy will have less money - and I'm sure mine is not the only company having similar plans. Unless of course UK retains the free market with EU. I couldn't care less about cookie law or html link tax.
- ubernostrum 10y ago
  I can't help wondering if there's an effect here like the one that produces anti-vaccination attitudes. We're running out of people who have direct experience of a world before routine vaccination for childhood illnesses, and so the downside of taking the anti-vaccine stance simply isn't apparent to people until their own children die of preventable illness, at which point it's too late to help. Similarly, I wonder if it's simply been long enough -- when the UK joined the European common market, today's pensioners were too young to have much if any experience of the business/labor world -- that the people of the UK are in a similar situation of not realizing just what a risk they're taking, or how bad the consequences can be, since they have no direct experience.
  - zeveb 10y ago
    > when the UK joined the European common market The problem is that the EU should have remained the Common Market, instead of growing into a largely unaccountable, largely undemocratic, largely technocratic, ungainly nightmare. I think that a United States of Europe is inevitable, and even a good idea, but it should have been done slowly, gradually and with respect for the differing peoples of Britain and the Continent. Instead, what took about 150 year for America was rammed through in about 30.
    - mioelnir 10y ago
      > for the differing peoples of Britain and the Continent So you on the islands are special but we monkeys on the continent are all the same? The UK has been half-in/half-out of the EU for the last 40 years, always wanting extra on all the benefits and never taking a downside in return. I'm glad you've finally made up your mind, as one way or the other this shitshow will finally end.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
return0 10y ago
> to regain independence. I hope that word doesn't stick. All EU countries are independent, as is the UK. For the sake of all 27 EU countries , please stop using divisive and wrong rhetoric. > Long term, we now have control of our future. I would like to hear one concrete way in which the future is going to be, after the negotiations, substantially different than what it is today. > And can anyone on here really stand up for the idiotic cookie law? Can you stand up for the "html link tax"? That's just the tip of the iceberg with the meddling from the EU. The cookie law and the lack of a small-business friendly common VAT policy are things to work on (html link tax does not exist), certainly not a reason for such a significant rift. OTOH, i hope you had stayed to enjoy zero data roaming fees within the next year. > If you're pro-small business, then you should be excited about the opportunities we have now. Sure. I use ebay.co.uk all the time, because apparently lots of sellers there willing to sell to the EU, and we have no import duties that way. Import duties is going to be a deal breaker for me. Exciting opportunities indeed.
- rayiner 10y ago
  > I hope that word doesn't stick. All EU countries are independent, as is the UK. For the sake of all 27 EU countries , please stop using divisive and wrong rhetoric. Lesson from the US: You can't have sovereigns with superior sovereigns. Individual US states are on paper sovereign, but in reality have been relegated to being administrative districts of the federal government with little meaningful right to self-determination independent of other states.
  - return0 10y ago
    Its not like that, without a common language and currency, EU presence in the UK is not much more than a common set of certain standards.
    - BuildTheRobots 10y ago
      Standards like Human Rights, which is something the UK has already expressed an interest in removing.
gutnor 10y ago
If you assume the UK still participate in the single market, then the majority of the stuff you don't like about Europe are still going to be there. Except that the UK would have lost any kind of direct influence on its rules and regulations. Otherwise, the UK will compete against other startup place like Berlin where any European can freely go. That's a huge pool of talent that is no longer directly accessible. Then for global talent the UK will still need to compete with place like the US. It is not strange how it is spun. There are people that are paid to analyse the stuff you are talking about and they unanimous conclusion is that the outlook look bad short term, medium term and long term. My hope right now is that the next PM will be a cunning genius that will negotiate incredible deals for the UK and prove the economists and analysts were wrong. But let's face it, have you seen genius in the winners today: they all looked like like a kid that managed to stole the cookie jar and don't know what to do with it.
- rdtsc 10y ago
  > Otherwise, the UK will compete against other startup place like Berlin where any European can freely go. As a non-EU or non-UK citizen, I guess that's good? It means competition. Perhaps UK would try to make a better environment to attract startups to compete? I don't think it is too crazy of a thought.
  - gutnor 10y ago
    That's the other side of the coin. How the UK deals with the increase difficulty to find talent ? It is difficult to predict especially because the Leave politicians that will lead the country have campaigned on immigration control, and immigrant stealing jobs. However they don't really have an agenda and have proven that they are willing to backtrack even on big item like the NHS funding, so who knows ? Your scenario could happen. The UK could do too little or too late and let the startup market fizzle. Or the UK could simply not care.
zeveb 10y ago
> As a brit, it's strange to see how it's being spun here. Yeah, the spin annoys me too. Had things gone the other way, there'd be patriotic Englishmen experiencing doom, gloom & unease today. There'd be folks who love the U.K. who could say, 'I'm devastated, I think this is a complete disaster.' There would have been folks stunned and appalled that a microscopic majority had managed to end their nation's thousand-year sovereignty. Who knows? There might even have been tons of folks Googling to see how the Leave faction were handling things now that they'd lost, or what their arguments had been. But would we have seen those articles today? No, because the people who feel those things and think those thoughts are looked down upon by the article-writing and -reading classes. They literally don't matter.
- te_chris 10y ago
  No one would be doing that because it was a campaign built on deceit, lies and the PM's vanity.
ParrotyError 10y ago
Are you nuts? We already had control. Now the future of the UK is in jeopardy because of you tinfoil hat brigade.
- programmarchy 10y ago
  Personal attack is not an argument.
  - ParrotyError 10y ago
    No, but it's how the Kippers won the vote.
  - ParrotyError 10y ago
    "We already had control" is, however.
  - ParrotyError 10y ago
    No, let's attack the unemployed, the sick, the old, the disabled, the mentally ill, the foreign, the Muslims instead, right? Done up like a kipper!
WalterBright 10y ago
The friction that comes from having borders that restrict the free flow of workers, goods, and services will be a large cost to both the British and EU economies. The uncertainty about how this will all play out will also have a dampening effect.
cdi 10y ago
Also the idiotic "Right to be forgotten".
- yabatopia 10y ago
  What's idiotic about the right to be forgotten?
  - BrutallyHonest 10y ago
    Past behaviour somewhat predicts future behaviour.
  - wtbob 10y ago
    > What's idiotic about the right to be forgotten? Snarky answer: the right to be forgotten part. Serious answer: the so-called 'right to be forgotten' is really a 'right to force others to delete true statements,' which is to say, to cause them to lie by omission. It is an infringement upon those others' right to free speech. It's fundamentally stupid: no-one has a right compel government violence in order to muzzle others.
twblalock 10y ago
> Long term, we now have control of our future. Not really. Your future is just as bound up with the future of Europe as it was before. The only real difference is that instead of negotiating with the EU as a member, you will have to negotiate as an outsider who has considerably less leverage, and who has recently pissed everyone off. And when you negotiate with non-EU countries, it will be even worse for you. As a member of the EU, you had international clout and represented the world's largest free-trade market. Now all you have to offer is your own domestic market. You overestimate your importance in the world economy if you think you can now get trade deals with non-EU countries that are as good as the deals you could have got as a member of the EU. It's also been interesting to watch the Leave campaigners rapidly begin backtracking on their promises to reduce immigration. You simply can't afford to reduce immigration at this point -- it would shrink your economy. Immigration is a response to the demand for workers, and if that demand goes unfilled because of restrictive immigration policies, all of you will suffer. So, don't expect the government to impose significant reduction in immigration. Immigration will only decrease when your demand for workers decreases. As a non-EU country, I suppose you will avoid the "html link tax" and some other bureaucratic EU regulations you don't like, but in the areas that really matter for your future, e.g. the economy, you will be worse off. In the area that energized many leave voters, immigration, you cannot realistically expect much to change, and whatever changes will happen in the future because of decreased demand for workers probably would have happened anyway.
- ZenoArrow 10y ago
  Regaining control was always about more than economic control. If you're in the EU, I hope you realise that you're currently being ruled by people you didn't elect, people in the pocket of big business, who have set out to concentrate power in the hands of a small selected group. I've heard some EU apologists claim that they don't believe in democracy, but some of us still do.
  - twblalock 10y ago
    > I hope you realise that you're currently being ruled by people you didn't elect Everyone in the EU is ruled by their own elected government. The unelected bureaucrats in Brussels don't rule anybody. Their ability to make decisions for member states is limited by treaties. In any case, the UK was significantly more independent than other EU states in terms of currency and economic issues. > people in the pocket of big business, who have set out to concentrate power in the hands of a small selected group Ah, conspiracy theories.
jacquesm 10y ago
Stability has a cost. And that cost is well worth bearing.
- volatilitish 10y ago
  Are you seriously holding up the EU as some bastion of stability? How stable is Greece? Seriously - you should research it a little more. The EU is perilously unstable.
sorokod 10y ago
For whatever it's worth, the majority of Londoners voted remain.
- volatilitish 10y ago
  They did. Because London has become absolutely culturally detatched from the rest of the UK. The rich elite living in Islington really do love the EU. Unfortunately, the EU hasn't been quite so good for people who don't live in London or Scotland.
gnaritas 10y ago
> The majority of people voted to leave the EU and to regain independence. The older generation voted for it, the youth voted against, and it barely passed, so the old people just created a future the younger generation doesn't want; this is a terrible outcome. The Brexit just eliminated the right of free travel and work across all of the EU for the upcoming generation, they aren't happy about that. You've just shot yourselves in the foot as a nation.
- volatilitish 10y ago
  The older generation have seen 40 years of the EU. They know it cannot be reformed, and they know it is a corrupt undemocratic rotten sham. Young people have been fed pro-EU propaganda from the earliest ages at nursery, school, and university. We certainly haven't shot ourselves in the foot. We have taken back our democracy and right to self rule.
  - gnaritas 10y ago
    You only think you have, you've just tanked your economy and weakened your power in the world, it's really not a good thing and your young people are smart enough to see it.
kaid 10y ago
it's good to see uk leaving eu, any efforts in establishing universal ideas will almost likely result in failures if not disasters. and uk's classical liberalism tradition seems never compatible with eu's social democractic perspectives.
AnonymousPlanet 10y ago
Do yourself a favour and look up EU, EEA, EFTA, and the rights and obligations of the respective member states. Assuming the EU countries won't give you a hard time, the most likely outcome is that the UK remains a member of the EEA. This means, e.g., granting free movement, paying support, and implementing regulations and standards (kettles and toasters come to mind wink), while only having a minimum of say in it or none at all. You will only have gained control to a minor extent. Not being part of a trade union that removes tariffs on goods and services would have a detrimental effect on at least the productive sector. You will have to restructure your economy into becoming Switzerland (i.e., not being part of major supply chains) very fast. You will probably join EFTA to be part in at least some kind of trade union. In the end, you will either be less in control than you thought or in an economical limbo. Talking about spin: maybe you have been influenced by the negative spin anything EU got in the last years in the UK?
tlogan 10y ago
> As a brit... One joke from my Scottish friend. If somebody says "I'm Brit", they will ask "What is that? So you are English? I'm Scottish.". Just a joke - I do not want to be disrespectful here. This will be like Grexit... Money will start talking. Politicians will drag implementing Brexit. Then they slowly forgot about it the UK will be even more dependent on EU.
collyw 10y ago
The EU also has for net neutrality.
rawfan 10y ago
There are two scenarios that I can imagine: 1. The Swiss model: The UK will try to achieve bilateral agreements with all EU member countries (and ALL other countries that they didn't need to deal with before because they had a deal through the EU). 2. The Norwegian model: The UK will make a single deal allowing full access to the single market and transitive access to other markets through the EU (basically keeping the status quo). Both options have some things on common: Any kind of deal with the EU or EU member countries will require the UK to still follow all EU regulations (just as any other 3rd country who want to do business in the EU). Many countries that currently have deals with the EU (including the US) already stated that they won't engage in negotiations until EU/UK deals are finalized. That's leaving the UK in a dangerous state of limbo. Back to option 1: The Swiss have 200+ bilateral agreements with many countries in the world. They worked on these agreements for the past century. UK diplomats stated that even if they work full time on new trade agreements. achieving more than 1-2 deals per year is not realistic. A simple problem of diplomatic manpower. You can't do in 1-2 years what the Swiss have done in 70+ years. For comparison, just think about the amount of time put into negotiation TTIP. There's no respectable political scientist I know of, who would consider the Swiss modal a feasable option for the UK. That leaves option 2: Norway pays roughly the amount of a (full) European membership fee to get full access to the single market. They pay that only for access to the market. The have to abide by all EU regulations without being able to vote on them or any other kind of influence. It is still a good deal for them. The UK currently pays a reduced fee PLUS they profit from EU subsidies (reducing the net amount of money payed even more). The UK won't be offered a better deal than Norway. That leads to the UK paying A LOT more without receiving any of the benefits or having any say in the regulations they still need to follow. The UK would still need to let EU citizens into their country and allow them to work because that's part of the deal and the UK actually needs immigrants. The UK will take this deal because in the end membership fees don't matter that much. The 125b pounds the market lost in a single day equal 15 years of membership fees. So the "leave" people didn't seem to care about that too much. Here's a third option that I'd put on the table: Whoever comes after Cameron receives a vote of no confidence leading to new elections. Respectable parties will campaign with "If you vote for us, we'll ignore the referendum." Problem solved.

coderdude 10y ago

Good for the grandmother country to break out on its own. I've never had a high opinion of the EU. Mostly because of their ridiculous laws about the internet. I'm happy about this and I hope it works out well.

gambiting 10y ago
There is a good chance that Theresa May becomes the next MP, and if she does, British internet will be much worse than anything you can find inside the EU - she already tried cracking down on open internet multiple times. If anything, EU would have protected UK from such stupid ideas.
- coderdude 10y ago
  Like I said, I hope the best for them. You can throw political propaganda at me all day long but I respect them for leaving.
  - gambiting 10y ago
    How is discussing possible options propaganda? And no, I have no respect for anyone who voted leave,they have fucked millions of people today without any plan how to improve things long term. If there was a plan,I would admire leavers for thinking long term - but there's nothing there.
- volatilitish 10y ago
  > There is a good chance that Theresa May becomes the next MP No, there isn't. Seriously, where are you getting your information from? Are you from the UK? There isn't a chance in hell Theresa May would even get shortlisted.
  - gambiting 10y ago
    Not a chance you say? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-36618738 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-36618738
dave_sullivan 10y ago
I've never had a high opinion of a divided Europe, mostly because of the two world wars that started there. The problems driving the brexit will not suddenly get better now. I'll put it this way: has economic isolationism ever made a country better off in the history of history? I can't think of a time.
- coderdude 10y ago
  It's not like all of trade is going to stop there. Isolationism, more like sensationalism.
- volatilitish 10y ago
  Do you think the breakup of the USSR was a good thing?
  - dave_sullivan 10y ago
    Ah, that's a good question. Yes and no. Yes because there were deep systemic problems with the government and economy of the USSR at the time and the breakup was an inevitable result of the powers that be doing the wrong thing for so many years while business and some of the most productive citizens fled to Europe and the US. We're seeing the same thing right now in Venezuela, although Venezuela was never the world's second superpower. Also, Russia's biggest gains (and maybe what saved them after the collapse?) was energy in the form of oil and gas. Venezuela too. If alternative, readily available energy sources take off, this makes natural reserves of oil and gas less useful. Again, we're seeing all this play out now. No because here we are today. The brexit and weakening of the EU will only strengthen Russia. Why support the EU over Russia? The EU, afaik, does not kill reporters and dissenters. That says a lot about a political organization's philosophy right there. In general, I think it would be great if everyone on the planet lived in some kind of operationally transparent, porous, federated political structure, and Britain's involvement in the EU was a big step in that direction (which still had many steps to go). This is a step backwards. Meanwhile, today's Russia would do a lot better if they tried a carrot instead of a stick. In any case, now is not the time for leaders to get up from the table and walk away, it doesn't lead anywhere good.

illumin8 10y ago

If you think the full on collapse of the UK banking system, and the mass exodus of financial jobs isn't going to instantly dry up any startup funding in the UK, you're kidding yourself. Large companies in the UK are already announcing their intention to move thousands of jobs to Germany or Ireland.

dr_ick 10y ago
> full on collapse of the UK banking system Hyperbole much? Stop with the fear mongering. Also, which "large companies" have announced they are moving? Source?
- illumin8 10y ago
  http://www.bbc.com/news/business-36623723 http://www.bbc.com/news/business-36623723 "American banks JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley are able to sell to the rest of Europe from London under special "passporting" arrangements. Even before the negotiations with the EU begin, both have said they may need to move staff to the EU to serve their European customers. JP Morgan alone has warned up to 4,000 jobs could leave the UK. Airbus employs 15,000 people in the UK and chief executive Tom Enders said. "This is a lose-lose result for both Britain and Europe. We will review our UK investment strategy, like everybody else will."
  - dr_ick 10y ago
    So no companies have announced they are moving. They are evaluating the situation, as any responsible corporation should. The UK banking system is not about to collapse.
    - justin66 10y ago
      London will give up its position as "world financial capital," I would think. That always seemed a bit odd, and now that they're losing one of their main advantages...
      - deleted 10y ago

Scirra_Tom 10y ago

> If you're pro-small business, then you should be excited about the opportunities we have now. Such as? Please elaborate. One thing we can look forwards to is paying VAT to every EU country individually. That's going to be fun.

x5n1 10y ago
Yes right now. This can be fixed without giving up sovereignty. Many things that the EU is supposed to be solve can be solved via individual treaties. There is no need to give away the farm to get small benefits. At the end of the day the world is better off without conglomeration of power. Any of them are a bad idea. Individual treaties for problem points are the way to go.
- Scirra_Tom 10y ago
  Conglomeration of power is very useful in some situations. For example, global environmental problems. Have one conglomerate force everyone to do better. If each country acted independently, each country is incentivised to not think about the bigger picture and act in their own short term interests. This was my main reason for voting in.
  - x5n1 10y ago
    It can go the other way as well. If you have a large conglomeration of power it's easy for a few people with capital to take over and make all the rules and potentially destroy the environment. See the United States for an example of this, especially in terms of fracking. People who don't necessarily suffer due to bad policy but profit from it. For instance this quote from the Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_fracturing_in_the_United_States#Environmental_and_health_impact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_fracturing_in_the_Un... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_fracturing_in_the_United_States#Environmental_and_health_impact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_fracturing_in_the_Un... "A majority of the EPA's Scientific Advisory Board advised the EPA to scale back proposed toxity testing of fracking chemicals, and not pursue development of tracer chemicals to be added to frack treatments, because of time limitations. Chesapeake Energy agreed with the recommendation." Conglomerations of power benefit people with power the most. That can be a positive or a negative depending on what policies those people want to pursue.

pisarzp 10y ago

It's not that simple. At least now you had one set of rules, and under them you could've operated in whole EU by passporting your licence. Now there will be two separate ones. If you want to expand from UK, or vice-versa enter UK, you need to do twice as much work in terms of regulations. This is especially applicable for fintech startups, which are very prominent in UK.

_audakel 10y ago

"Although there have been some recent minor steps in a positive direction concerning copyright in the EU, politicians have been trying to undermine them with really terrible ideas. We already covered the push to effectively outlaw outdoor photography,"

vonnik 10y ago

Independence is a mirage, as is control. No individual nor country in the world is independent. We are all interdependent on one another, and ever more so as the movement of data, goods and people accelerates. The EU is a framework is facilitate that interdependence, and while it has many faults, it was created to prevent another world war and in that it has succeeded. Great Britain's future is very dependent on the decisions of its neighbors and trade partners, and it has just told those neighbors and trade partners to go to hell. The EU will make the UK pay a price for Brexit, and rightly so, otherwise all member states would leave and still enjoy the free movement of goods and people. Every power structure is co-optable by large corporations and special interests. The Leave leaders are no different. You have swapped out one regrettable elite for another, much as the former British colonies nations did mid-century. There are many problems "independence" doesn't solve, and dealing with special interests is one of them. Best of luck.

searine 10y ago
>It was created to prevent another world war and in that it has succeeded. As if. It was created as an amalgamation of post-war globalist trade deals. The EU administrative bodies were tacked on later to make it palatable as a governing body. It's not inherently bad that an organization is founded on trade, but don't shit on my plate and call it pudding.
- Scirra_Tom 10y ago
  > It was created as an amalgamation of post-war globalist trade deals. To deincentivise countries going to war with each other...
  - djschnei 10y ago
    No, free trade did that. The EU does not have a patent on free trade. In fact, they are pretty horrible at it.
    - masklinn 10y ago

gambiting 10y ago

I run a small company trading between UK and two other EU countries. This is a disaster - I remember back when you had to pay import duties in countries that haven't joined the EU yet, and basically with razor thin margins, the added cost of bureaucracy would collapse the company now. I'm already considering switching suppliers from UK to Germany, which of course means that UK economy will have less money - and I'm sure mine is not the only company having similar plans. Unless of course UK retains the free market with EU. I couldn't care less about cookie law or html link tax.

ubernostrum 10y ago
I can't help wondering if there's an effect here like the one that produces anti-vaccination attitudes. We're running out of people who have direct experience of a world before routine vaccination for childhood illnesses, and so the downside of taking the anti-vaccine stance simply isn't apparent to people until their own children die of preventable illness, at which point it's too late to help. Similarly, I wonder if it's simply been long enough -- when the UK joined the European common market, today's pensioners were too young to have much if any experience of the business/labor world -- that the people of the UK are in a similar situation of not realizing just what a risk they're taking, or how bad the consequences can be, since they have no direct experience.
- zeveb 10y ago
  > when the UK joined the European common market The problem is that the EU should have remained the Common Market, instead of growing into a largely unaccountable, largely undemocratic, largely technocratic, ungainly nightmare. I think that a United States of Europe is inevitable, and even a good idea, but it should have been done slowly, gradually and with respect for the differing peoples of Britain and the Continent. Instead, what took about 150 year for America was rammed through in about 30.
  - mioelnir 10y ago
    > for the differing peoples of Britain and the Continent So you on the islands are special but we monkeys on the continent are all the same? The UK has been half-in/half-out of the EU for the last 40 years, always wanting extra on all the benefits and never taking a downside in return. I'm glad you've finally made up your mind, as one way or the other this shitshow will finally end.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

return0 10y ago

> to regain independence. I hope that word doesn't stick. All EU countries are independent, as is the UK. For the sake of all 27 EU countries , please stop using divisive and wrong rhetoric. > Long term, we now have control of our future. I would like to hear one concrete way in which the future is going to be, after the negotiations, substantially different than what it is today. > And can anyone on here really stand up for the idiotic cookie law? Can you stand up for the "html link tax"? That's just the tip of the iceberg with the meddling from the EU. The cookie law and the lack of a small-business friendly common VAT policy are things to work on (html link tax does not exist), certainly not a reason for such a significant rift. OTOH, i hope you had stayed to enjoy zero data roaming fees within the next year. > If you're pro-small business, then you should be excited about the opportunities we have now. Sure. I use ebay.co.uk all the time, because apparently lots of sellers there willing to sell to the EU, and we have no import duties that way. Import duties is going to be a deal breaker for me. Exciting opportunities indeed.

rayiner 10y ago
> I hope that word doesn't stick. All EU countries are independent, as is the UK. For the sake of all 27 EU countries , please stop using divisive and wrong rhetoric. Lesson from the US: You can't have sovereigns with superior sovereigns. Individual US states are on paper sovereign, but in reality have been relegated to being administrative districts of the federal government with little meaningful right to self-determination independent of other states.
- return0 10y ago
  Its not like that, without a common language and currency, EU presence in the UK is not much more than a common set of certain standards.
  - BuildTheRobots 10y ago
    Standards like Human Rights, which is something the UK has already expressed an interest in removing.

gutnor 10y ago

If you assume the UK still participate in the single market, then the majority of the stuff you don't like about Europe are still going to be there. Except that the UK would have lost any kind of direct influence on its rules and regulations. Otherwise, the UK will compete against other startup place like Berlin where any European can freely go. That's a huge pool of talent that is no longer directly accessible. Then for global talent the UK will still need to compete with place like the US. It is not strange how it is spun. There are people that are paid to analyse the stuff you are talking about and they unanimous conclusion is that the outlook look bad short term, medium term and long term. My hope right now is that the next PM will be a cunning genius that will negotiate incredible deals for the UK and prove the economists and analysts were wrong. But let's face it, have you seen genius in the winners today: they all looked like like a kid that managed to stole the cookie jar and don't know what to do with it.

rdtsc 10y ago
> Otherwise, the UK will compete against other startup place like Berlin where any European can freely go. As a non-EU or non-UK citizen, I guess that's good? It means competition. Perhaps UK would try to make a better environment to attract startups to compete? I don't think it is too crazy of a thought.
- gutnor 10y ago
  That's the other side of the coin. How the UK deals with the increase difficulty to find talent ? It is difficult to predict especially because the Leave politicians that will lead the country have campaigned on immigration control, and immigrant stealing jobs. However they don't really have an agenda and have proven that they are willing to backtrack even on big item like the NHS funding, so who knows ? Your scenario could happen. The UK could do too little or too late and let the startup market fizzle. Or the UK could simply not care.

zeveb 10y ago

> As a brit, it's strange to see how it's being spun here. Yeah, the spin annoys me too. Had things gone the other way, there'd be patriotic Englishmen experiencing doom, gloom & unease today. There'd be folks who love the U.K. who could say, 'I'm devastated, I think this is a complete disaster.' There would have been folks stunned and appalled that a microscopic majority had managed to end their nation's thousand-year sovereignty. Who knows? There might even have been tons of folks Googling to see how the Leave faction were handling things now that they'd lost, or what their arguments had been. But would we have seen those articles today? No, because the people who feel those things and think those thoughts are looked down upon by the article-writing and -reading classes. They literally don't matter.

te_chris 10y ago
No one would be doing that because it was a campaign built on deceit, lies and the PM's vanity.

ParrotyError 10y ago

Are you nuts? We already had control. Now the future of the UK is in jeopardy because of you tinfoil hat brigade.

programmarchy 10y ago
Personal attack is not an argument.
- ParrotyError 10y ago
  No, but it's how the Kippers won the vote.
- ParrotyError 10y ago
  "We already had control" is, however.
- ParrotyError 10y ago
  No, let's attack the unemployed, the sick, the old, the disabled, the mentally ill, the foreign, the Muslims instead, right? Done up like a kipper!

WalterBright 10y ago

The friction that comes from having borders that restrict the free flow of workers, goods, and services will be a large cost to both the British and EU economies. The uncertainty about how this will all play out will also have a dampening effect.

cdi 10y ago

Also the idiotic "Right to be forgotten".

yabatopia 10y ago
What's idiotic about the right to be forgotten?
- BrutallyHonest 10y ago
  Past behaviour somewhat predicts future behaviour.
- wtbob 10y ago
  > What's idiotic about the right to be forgotten? Snarky answer: the right to be forgotten part. Serious answer: the so-called 'right to be forgotten' is really a 'right to force others to delete true statements,' which is to say, to cause them to lie by omission. It is an infringement upon those others' right to free speech. It's fundamentally stupid: no-one has a right compel government violence in order to muzzle others.

twblalock 10y ago

> Long term, we now have control of our future. Not really. Your future is just as bound up with the future of Europe as it was before. The only real difference is that instead of negotiating with the EU as a member, you will have to negotiate as an outsider who has considerably less leverage, and who has recently pissed everyone off. And when you negotiate with non-EU countries, it will be even worse for you. As a member of the EU, you had international clout and represented the world's largest free-trade market. Now all you have to offer is your own domestic market. You overestimate your importance in the world economy if you think you can now get trade deals with non-EU countries that are as good as the deals you could have got as a member of the EU. It's also been interesting to watch the Leave campaigners rapidly begin backtracking on their promises to reduce immigration. You simply can't afford to reduce immigration at this point -- it would shrink your economy. Immigration is a response to the demand for workers, and if that demand goes unfilled because of restrictive immigration policies, all of you will suffer. So, don't expect the government to impose significant reduction in immigration. Immigration will only decrease when your demand for workers decreases. As a non-EU country, I suppose you will avoid the "html link tax" and some other bureaucratic EU regulations you don't like, but in the areas that really matter for your future, e.g. the economy, you will be worse off. In the area that energized many leave voters, immigration, you cannot realistically expect much to change, and whatever changes will happen in the future because of decreased demand for workers probably would have happened anyway.

ZenoArrow 10y ago
Regaining control was always about more than economic control. If you're in the EU, I hope you realise that you're currently being ruled by people you didn't elect, people in the pocket of big business, who have set out to concentrate power in the hands of a small selected group. I've heard some EU apologists claim that they don't believe in democracy, but some of us still do.
- twblalock 10y ago
  > I hope you realise that you're currently being ruled by people you didn't elect Everyone in the EU is ruled by their own elected government. The unelected bureaucrats in Brussels don't rule anybody. Their ability to make decisions for member states is limited by treaties. In any case, the UK was significantly more independent than other EU states in terms of currency and economic issues. > people in the pocket of big business, who have set out to concentrate power in the hands of a small selected group Ah, conspiracy theories.

jacquesm 10y ago

Stability has a cost. And that cost is well worth bearing.

volatilitish 10y ago
Are you seriously holding up the EU as some bastion of stability? How stable is Greece? Seriously - you should research it a little more. The EU is perilously unstable.

sorokod 10y ago

For whatever it's worth, the majority of Londoners voted remain.

volatilitish 10y ago
They did. Because London has become absolutely culturally detatched from the rest of the UK. The rich elite living in Islington really do love the EU. Unfortunately, the EU hasn't been quite so good for people who don't live in London or Scotland.

gnaritas 10y ago

> The majority of people voted to leave the EU and to regain independence. The older generation voted for it, the youth voted against, and it barely passed, so the old people just created a future the younger generation doesn't want; this is a terrible outcome. The Brexit just eliminated the right of free travel and work across all of the EU for the upcoming generation, they aren't happy about that. You've just shot yourselves in the foot as a nation.

volatilitish 10y ago
The older generation have seen 40 years of the EU. They know it cannot be reformed, and they know it is a corrupt undemocratic rotten sham. Young people have been fed pro-EU propaganda from the earliest ages at nursery, school, and university. We certainly haven't shot ourselves in the foot. We have taken back our democracy and right to self rule.
- gnaritas 10y ago
  You only think you have, you've just tanked your economy and weakened your power in the world, it's really not a good thing and your young people are smart enough to see it.

kaid 10y ago

it's good to see uk leaving eu, any efforts in establishing universal ideas will almost likely result in failures if not disasters. and uk's classical liberalism tradition seems never compatible with eu's social democractic perspectives.

AnonymousPlanet 10y ago

Do yourself a favour and look up EU, EEA, EFTA, and the rights and obligations of the respective member states. Assuming the EU countries won't give you a hard time, the most likely outcome is that the UK remains a member of the EEA. This means, e.g., granting free movement, paying support, and implementing regulations and standards (kettles and toasters come to mind wink), while only having a minimum of say in it or none at all. You will only have gained control to a minor extent. Not being part of a trade union that removes tariffs on goods and services would have a detrimental effect on at least the productive sector. You will have to restructure your economy into becoming Switzerland (i.e., not being part of major supply chains) very fast. You will probably join EFTA to be part in at least some kind of trade union. In the end, you will either be less in control than you thought or in an economical limbo. Talking about spin: maybe you have been influenced by the negative spin anything EU got in the last years in the UK?

tlogan 10y ago

> As a brit... One joke from my Scottish friend. If somebody says "I'm Brit", they will ask "What is that? So you are English? I'm Scottish.". Just a joke - I do not want to be disrespectful here. This will be like Grexit... Money will start talking. Politicians will drag implementing Brexit. Then they slowly forgot about it the UK will be even more dependent on EU.

collyw 10y ago

The EU also has for net neutrality.

rawfan 10y ago

There are two scenarios that I can imagine: 1. The Swiss model: The UK will try to achieve bilateral agreements with all EU member countries (and ALL other countries that they didn't need to deal with before because they had a deal through the EU). 2. The Norwegian model: The UK will make a single deal allowing full access to the single market and transitive access to other markets through the EU (basically keeping the status quo). Both options have some things on common: Any kind of deal with the EU or EU member countries will require the UK to still follow all EU regulations (just as any other 3rd country who want to do business in the EU). Many countries that currently have deals with the EU (including the US) already stated that they won't engage in negotiations until EU/UK deals are finalized. That's leaving the UK in a dangerous state of limbo. Back to option 1: The Swiss have 200+ bilateral agreements with many countries in the world. They worked on these agreements for the past century. UK diplomats stated that even if they work full time on new trade agreements. achieving more than 1-2 deals per year is not realistic. A simple problem of diplomatic manpower. You can't do in 1-2 years what the Swiss have done in 70+ years. For comparison, just think about the amount of time put into negotiation TTIP. There's no respectable political scientist I know of, who would consider the Swiss modal a feasable option for the UK. That leaves option 2: Norway pays roughly the amount of a (full) European membership fee to get full access to the single market. They pay that only for access to the market. The have to abide by all EU regulations without being able to vote on them or any other kind of influence. It is still a good deal for them. The UK currently pays a reduced fee PLUS they profit from EU subsidies (reducing the net amount of money payed even more). The UK won't be offered a better deal than Norway. That leads to the UK paying A LOT more without receiving any of the benefits or having any say in the regulations they still need to follow. The UK would still need to let EU citizens into their country and allow them to work because that's part of the deal and the UK actually needs immigrants. The UK will take this deal because in the end membership fees don't matter that much. The 125b pounds the market lost in a single day equal 15 years of membership fees. So the "leave" people didn't seem to care about that too much. Here's a third option that I'd put on the table: Whoever comes after Cameron receives a vote of no confidence leading to new elections. Respectable parties will campaign with "If you vote for us, we'll ignore the referendum." Problem solved.