7 ms·

IBM is preparing for a UK exit from the EU

46 points by jboynyc 8y ago

excalibur 8y ago
Well, at least somebody has a plan.
- Animats 8y ago
  Yes. It looks like the UK is headed for a "hard Brexit", having been unable to agree on anything else. Parliament just voted down May's latest proposal. 17 days to go. An extension requires unanimous consent of the 27 EU countries. The EU leadership has taken the position that they would only consider an extension if the UK got its act together and had a concrete plan that just needed time to implement. Not happening.
  - benj111 8y ago
    The UK can unilaterally retract Article 50. There is a vote to block a no deal Brexit tomorrow, which is expected to pass.
    - msclrhd 8y ago
      Because the ERG ("European Research Group", including MPs like Jacob Rees-Mogg) pushed a UK ammendment to include the March 29th leaving date into UK law, MPs will need to revoke that to make it possible to retract Article 50. It is unclear whether the current pariament breakdown would support removing that ammendment. The key question is how blocking a no deal Brexit will be implemented, given the rejection of the withdrawal agreement (not a deal!) and the reluctance of the EU to extend the Article 50 period without something different such as a general election or people's vote. There is also the upcoming European Parliament elections in 3 months which -- if the UK stays past that point -- the UK would need to participate in if Article 50 was extended past that point. A general election is also problematic as it will likely result in another hung parlaiment or slim majority and we will be back where we are. This is especially the case given that Scotland is overwhelmingly SNP, and may gain seats over the Conservatives/Tories. While a people's vote may be a potential way out of the deadlock, the government (and maybe the majority of parliament) are against it. Even if there is a majority for it, there isn't a majority for what to ask in the new vote. There are MPs that don't want remain on the vote, and there are others that don't want no deal on the vote.
      - benj111 8y ago
        Agreed. I would guess that if a majority of MPs voted against a hard Brexit, that would imply their for an extension. If that were taken off the table it would be logical (ha!) to conclude that they would support an article 50 reset. Of course the rest of the EU also know all this, so they don't really gain much from pushing the UK to that option.
  - votepaunchy 8y ago
    Theresa May can unilaterally prevent a hard Brexit and extend the time for negotiations by resetting the clock and reevaluating the circumstances of Brexit.
  - longhuei 8y ago
    What you said is not usually considered "hard Brexit," which is essentially the government's current plan, with respect to the "soft Brexit" where the UK still stay in the customs union. What you're describing is "no-deal Brexit."
TicklishTiger 8y ago
Except for the sticky header, this is a surprisingly useable page. It's funny, how in 2019, it feels strangely unfamiliar to be able to simply read a page without having to fight it and be annoyed by a million dark patterns.
- npunt 8y ago
  It's not terrible, but it has several unnecessary stylistic decisions that make legibility harder, including - sticky header as you mention - an unnecessary 3 column layout - switch between light / dark background - FAQ accordion where you have to click to view each answer, which collapses the others. This means to read the entire thing, you have to click >20 times. Content-wise, there's no TL;DR / summary at top which impacts understanding. I still can't find the part of the text that says IBM is preparing for a UK exit from the EU as the title suggests. It's a lot of 'well we believe these things and there's complexity in this'.
elefanten 8y ago
Makes sense they have this page and it shows thoughtfulness in identifying specific potential risks. But I think I only counted one plan that was actually disclosed: using EU Standard Clauses in client contracts to ensure data portability. Everything else pretty much says "we have comprehensive plans in place for this possibility".
pjc50 8y ago
As they point out, they're not going to be affected by customs issues. Anyone depending on physical imports or exports is faced with preparing for unknown but undoubtedly large delays. Given today's events of voting down the only deal on offer, the only realistic remaining outcomes are chaotic No Deal or No Brexit.
sytelus 8y ago
Genuine question: most countries in the world are not part of EU. The US, Japan, China etc are all doing fine and have good trade agreements in place with EU. No company is leaving from these countries because they don't happen to be in EU. What am I missing?
- thejj100100 8y ago
  It would involve creating a border between NI and ROI as the UK would otherwise have to be part of the custom's union which most Brexiteers don't want. A few other issues as well.. but that's the main one from what I can see.
- jontro 8y ago
  Well if you read the page they go through a few possible scenarios. If UK does a so called hard exit very few companies are prepared and there will be a rough transition period. Quoting from the page "As it stands, and if nothing changes, the default position will be for the UK to leave the EU without a withdrawal agreement on 29 March 2019 at 11pm UK time. This would mean there would be no transition period, and EU laws would cease to apply to the UK immediately at that time." This will obviously have some problematic impact short term
- kvz 8y ago
  I dont think consensus is being reached on trade agreements so we’d fall back to world trade rules. Cargo will have to be inspected at borders which will cause traffic jams at the borders. It’s also just: change. People have been accustomed to freely interact with the UK in the EU. Here’s for example how our company would suffer: https://transloadit.com/blog/2019/03/changing-our-legal-entity/ https://transloadit.com/blog/2019/03/changing-our-legal-enti... (we’re leaving before a hard brexit could happen)
- fjns 8y ago
  You can’t compare these to the UK. The US, Japan and China are all way bigger than the UK and in a different region than the UK. UK to France is 30 mins by train.
- pojntfx 8y ago

46 points by jboynyc 8y ago

excalibur 8y ago

Well, at least somebody has a plan.

Animats 8y ago
Yes. It looks like the UK is headed for a "hard Brexit", having been unable to agree on anything else. Parliament just voted down May's latest proposal. 17 days to go. An extension requires unanimous consent of the 27 EU countries. The EU leadership has taken the position that they would only consider an extension if the UK got its act together and had a concrete plan that just needed time to implement. Not happening.
- benj111 8y ago
  The UK can unilaterally retract Article 50. There is a vote to block a no deal Brexit tomorrow, which is expected to pass.
  - msclrhd 8y ago
    Because the ERG ("European Research Group", including MPs like Jacob Rees-Mogg) pushed a UK ammendment to include the March 29th leaving date into UK law, MPs will need to revoke that to make it possible to retract Article 50. It is unclear whether the current pariament breakdown would support removing that ammendment. The key question is how blocking a no deal Brexit will be implemented, given the rejection of the withdrawal agreement (not a deal!) and the reluctance of the EU to extend the Article 50 period without something different such as a general election or people's vote. There is also the upcoming European Parliament elections in 3 months which -- if the UK stays past that point -- the UK would need to participate in if Article 50 was extended past that point. A general election is also problematic as it will likely result in another hung parlaiment or slim majority and we will be back where we are. This is especially the case given that Scotland is overwhelmingly SNP, and may gain seats over the Conservatives/Tories. While a people's vote may be a potential way out of the deadlock, the government (and maybe the majority of parliament) are against it. Even if there is a majority for it, there isn't a majority for what to ask in the new vote. There are MPs that don't want remain on the vote, and there are others that don't want no deal on the vote.
    - benj111 8y ago
      Agreed. I would guess that if a majority of MPs voted against a hard Brexit, that would imply their for an extension. If that were taken off the table it would be logical (ha!) to conclude that they would support an article 50 reset. Of course the rest of the EU also know all this, so they don't really gain much from pushing the UK to that option.
- votepaunchy 8y ago
  Theresa May can unilaterally prevent a hard Brexit and extend the time for negotiations by resetting the clock and reevaluating the circumstances of Brexit.
- longhuei 8y ago
  What you said is not usually considered "hard Brexit," which is essentially the government's current plan, with respect to the "soft Brexit" where the UK still stay in the customs union. What you're describing is "no-deal Brexit."

TicklishTiger 8y ago

Except for the sticky header, this is a surprisingly useable page. It's funny, how in 2019, it feels strangely unfamiliar to be able to simply read a page without having to fight it and be annoyed by a million dark patterns.

npunt 8y ago
It's not terrible, but it has several unnecessary stylistic decisions that make legibility harder, including - sticky header as you mention - an unnecessary 3 column layout - switch between light / dark background - FAQ accordion where you have to click to view each answer, which collapses the others. This means to read the entire thing, you have to click >20 times. Content-wise, there's no TL;DR / summary at top which impacts understanding. I still can't find the part of the text that says IBM is preparing for a UK exit from the EU as the title suggests. It's a lot of 'well we believe these things and there's complexity in this'.

elefanten 8y ago

Makes sense they have this page and it shows thoughtfulness in identifying specific potential risks. But I think I only counted one plan that was actually disclosed: using EU Standard Clauses in client contracts to ensure data portability. Everything else pretty much says "we have comprehensive plans in place for this possibility".

pjc50 8y ago

As they point out, they're not going to be affected by customs issues. Anyone depending on physical imports or exports is faced with preparing for unknown but undoubtedly large delays. Given today's events of voting down the only deal on offer, the only realistic remaining outcomes are chaotic No Deal or No Brexit.

sytelus 8y ago

Genuine question: most countries in the world are not part of EU. The US, Japan, China etc are all doing fine and have good trade agreements in place with EU. No company is leaving from these countries because they don't happen to be in EU. What am I missing?

thejj100100 8y ago
It would involve creating a border between NI and ROI as the UK would otherwise have to be part of the custom's union which most Brexiteers don't want. A few other issues as well.. but that's the main one from what I can see.
jontro 8y ago
Well if you read the page they go through a few possible scenarios. If UK does a so called hard exit very few companies are prepared and there will be a rough transition period. Quoting from the page "As it stands, and if nothing changes, the default position will be for the UK to leave the EU without a withdrawal agreement on 29 March 2019 at 11pm UK time. This would mean there would be no transition period, and EU laws would cease to apply to the UK immediately at that time." This will obviously have some problematic impact short term
kvz 8y ago
I dont think consensus is being reached on trade agreements so we’d fall back to world trade rules. Cargo will have to be inspected at borders which will cause traffic jams at the borders. It’s also just: change. People have been accustomed to freely interact with the UK in the EU. Here’s for example how our company would suffer: https://transloadit.com/blog/2019/03/changing-our-legal-entity/ https://transloadit.com/blog/2019/03/changing-our-legal-enti... (we’re leaving before a hard brexit could happen)
fjns 8y ago
You can’t compare these to the UK. The US, Japan and China are all way bigger than the UK and in a different region than the UK. UK to France is 30 mins by train.
pojntfx 8y ago