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Doom, Gloom and Unease: London's Tech Scene Reacts to Brexit

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Re: Doom, Gloom and Unease: London's Tech Scene Reacts to Brexit

#141

Post by WalterBright »

volatilitish wrote: post #2

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 y…

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.

Re: Doom, Gloom and Unease: London's Tech Scene Reacts to Brexit

#142

Post by mywittyname »

nickbauman wrote: post #43
vonnik wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Exactly this. One of the illusions of control people have is that Britain now has a free hand to negotiate trade agreements with EU member states. The EU charter expressly forbids this. So Britain (or perhaps merely a rump England after Northern Ireland and Scotland EExit ) will be dealing with that same body but on unequal ground with other member states. Meet the new boss: Same as the old boss. I'm pretty sure you'…

This is what baffles me about the Brexit.

If ten equal partners get together to negotiate on a collective agreement, then the results will probably be fair to all parties.

If nine of those partners negotiate collectively with one partner, then the results will probably heavily favor the collective.

But, I guess it's better to have the freedom to be screwed than to be forced to take a good deal.

Re: Doom, Gloom and Unease: London's Tech Scene Reacts to Brexit

#143

Post by dragonwriter »

volatilitish wrote: post #138
nickbauman wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly this. One of the illusions of control people have is that Britain now has a free hand to negotiate trade agreements with EU member states. The EU charter expressly forbids this. So Britain (or perhaps merely a rump England after Northern Ireland and Scotland EExit ) will be dealing with that same body but on unequal ground with other member states. Meet the new boss: Same as the old boss. I'm pretty sure you'…

No. We will now be free to negotiate trade deals with countries outside the EU (Which we currently are not able to do. The EU has been absolutely awful at trying to negotiate trade deals with other countries). We will negotiate a trade deal with the EU as a whole. Everyone in the UK knows those facts.

> We will now be free to negotiate trade deals with countries outside the EU (Which we currently are not able to do. The EU has been absolutely awful at trying to negotiate trade deals with other countries). We will negotiate a trade deal with the EU as a whole.

The second sentence of the parenthetical, if taken to be true, casts significant doubt on the claim in the final sentence.

I don't doubt that the requirement for consensus in the EU makes EU-to-outside trade deals difficult to negotiate. OTOH, that same fact makes successful negotiation of an EU-Britain trade deal (either as part of or subsequent to an exit agreement) uncertain.

Re: Doom, Gloom and Unease: London's Tech Scene Reacts to Brexit

#144

Post by ori_b »

ommunist wrote: post #125
justin66 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

They are gaining one! Swiss banking privacy rules down under EU pressure. The UK now have freedom to keep large money more private than Swiss can do from now.

Switzerland is not part of the EU. Why do you think that the UK have more freedom in this case?

Re: Doom, Gloom and Unease: London's Tech Scene Reacts to Brexit

#145

Post by nix0n »

mattmanser wrote: post #72
Animats wrote: post #48

This may mean the breakup of the United Kingdom, too. Scotland and Northern Ireland mostly want to stay in Europe, and may choose to leave the UK, leaving Britain and Wales as the UK.[1] As a practical matter, it will become harder to do business into the EU from Britain. Visiting the EU from Britain may require a visa, and visiting Britain from the EU almost certainly will. This is really about Keeping Britain White…

Half the people in the UK aren't racists and it doesn't make you look good claiming they are. It was actually part of the problem and why leave won, no-one listened to their legitimate concerns and just kept sidelining a large chunk of the electorate by calling them racists. For most people it's not about racism and it's certainly not about colour (the most recent mass-migration from the EU are white anyway!). Citing…

Currently in the USA we are seeing a wave of racist nationalist isolationism, so we tend to see these concepts as going together. It's always tempting to draw parallels between USA politics and UK politics since the two nations have been close allies for many years. So, forgive us this misunderstanding.

Why did the UK vote to leave the EU?

Re: Doom, Gloom and Unease: London's Tech Scene Reacts to Brexit

#146

Post by hsitz »

p4wnc6 wrote: post #92
mjevans wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll take your word on those numbers as they sound reasonable. However I do believe you've neglected the other points of the post which were about the value of access to the European market place and that 10% say in how said market is run. Those are costs / benefits which are not so easily counted before the painful divorce is complete.

But it's unlikely for EU nations to significantly damage trading relationships with the UK. Germany, for example, exports a huge volume of cars to the UK and it comprises a significant portion of German GDP. Yes, there's volatility around exactly how such a trade deal will get worked out, but it's unrealistic to lump "access to European markets" into one big ball and assume that Brexit means that whole topic will be…

"In reality, most significant European trading partners with UK just want to keep on trading with them mostly as they have been, and will work out deals that allow such trading to mostly continue."

Do you know what you're talking about? That's a sincere question. My understanding is that the UK's significant trading partners are members of the EU, and that it's the EU, not the individual partners, who will have to decide on any new trade deals with the UK. As others have said, what sort of precedent would the EU be setting if they gave a withdrawing member the same benefits it had as an actual member? The EU does not want more members withdrawing.

Re: Doom, Gloom and Unease: London's Tech Scene Reacts to Brexit

#147

Post by cdi »

volatilitish wrote: post #2

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 y…

Also the idiotic "Right to be forgotten".

Re: Doom, Gloom and Unease: London's Tech Scene Reacts to Brexit

#148

Post by twblalock »

volatilitish wrote: post #2

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 y…

> 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.

Re: Doom, Gloom and Unease: London's Tech Scene Reacts to Brexit

#149

Post by return0 »

BuildTheRobots wrote: post #136
return0 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Standards like Human Rights, which is something the UK has already expressed an interest in removing.

I don't think thats true

Re: Doom, Gloom and Unease: London's Tech Scene Reacts to Brexit

#150

Post by DanBC »

nix0n wrote: post #145
mattmanser wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Half the people in the UK aren't racists and it doesn't make you look good claiming they are. It was actually part of the problem and why leave won, no-one listened to their legitimate concerns and just kept sidelining a large chunk of the electorate by calling them racists. For most people it's not about racism and it's certainly not about colour (the most recent mass-migration from the EU are white anyway!). Citing…

Currently in the USA we are seeing a wave of racist nationalist isolationism, so we tend to see these concepts as going together. It's always tempting to draw parallels between USA politics and UK politics since the two nations have been close allies for many years. So, forgive us this misunderstanding. Why did the UK vote to leave the EU?

> Currently in the USA we are seeing a wave of racist nationalist isolationism

We have that in the UK with UKIP - the UK Independence Party.

They've tried to move away from the blatantly racist core who find them attractive. You can't join UKIP as a member if you used to be a member of the National Front[1] or BNP[2].

They think this shows how they're not racists. I think it's telling that they need a rule to stop racists joining their party.

I guess the rise of UKIP is good if it's meant a decline in the BNP.

There are also other groups such as "EDL" (England Defence League) or "Britain First", who are anti-Muslim groups.

These are just the well known groups. Organisations like Combat18 are also on the rise.

[1] violent far-right thugs. Much worse than UKIP.

[2] less violent, but still far-right thugs. Much worse than UKIP.

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