<story><title>Doom, Gloom and Unease: London&apos;s Tech Scene Reacts to Brexit</title><url>http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-24/doom-gloom-and-unease-london-s-tech-scene-reacts-to-brexit</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>p4wnc6</author><text>But it&amp;#x27;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&amp;#x27;s volatility around exactly how such a trade deal will get worked out, but it&amp;#x27;s unrealistic to lump &amp;quot;access to European markets&amp;quot; into one big ball and assume that Brexit means that whole topic will be impacted negatively.&lt;p&gt;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. There doesn&amp;#x27;t seem to be much reason to think such trade deals will be radically changed in a way that damages anyone for the long term.</text></item><item><author>mjevans</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ll take your word on those numbers as they sound reasonable.&lt;p&gt;However I do believe you&amp;#x27;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 &amp;#x2F; benefits which are not so easily counted before the painful divorce is complete.</text></item><item><author>evgen</author><text>I think you have fundementally mixed things up here.  The UK is (was) the second-largest economy in the EU.  If you want to talk about percentage contribution to the EU budget the UK was a net contributor of 8.5 billion pounds (after &amp;quot;rebate&amp;quot;) more than it received from that same EU budget that totals around 125 billion pounds.  So they put in about 7% of the budget and get about 10% of the votes.  Definitely a deal that favors the UK, but let&amp;#x27;s please stick to reality and facts here.&lt;p&gt;[Expat in the UK who could not vote but followed this all quite closely... All of the numbers I quoted can be found in wikipedia if you want to go digging.]</text></item><item><author>IkmoIkmo</author><text>This really is a key point. The UK contributed a net of something like 140m pounds a week or so to the EU, that&amp;#x27;s about 7b pounds on a 1.8 trillion pound economy, or a small (0.3%) fraction or so of the GDP. For that they got 10% or so of the votes in all European affairs, and access to a market (50% of UK exports are to the EU) under favourable trade agreements, which are easily worth 0.3% of GDP in and of itself.&lt;p&gt;Now the UK will not contribute 0.3% of its GDP, lose some of its favourable deals that far exceed 0.3% of GDP, and lose the 10% vote in EU affairs, yet will be subjected to those affairs as part of the inevitable effort of negotiating to keep many (though impossibly all) of the benefits the UK now has as a member.&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s not independence, really. That&amp;#x27;s losing 10% influence in a union which you&amp;#x27;ll still be trading and working with, and who will still be subjecting you to lots of requirements under this new partnership, which you&amp;#x27;ll have a reduced say in.&lt;p&gt;Unless the UK actually wants to be independent in the semantic sense of isolationism, i.e. not deal with the EU at all anymore. Yes, then you&amp;#x27;d have independence, and you&amp;#x27;d also have a country that&amp;#x27;ll be completely wrecked, for the same principles that a broad boycott (e.g. Cuba for many decades, North Korea, Iraq during some of its harshest years etc) is so devastating, because interconnectedness is extremely valuable. That interconnectedness will still be sought for by the UK, but now it can&amp;#x27;t vote and is at the mercy of the largest economy in the world. Obviously the UK&amp;#x27;s economy and power will play a significant role in negotiations, no doubt, but the UK outside of the EU needs the EU more than vice versa.&lt;p&gt;So the independence argument I agree, is quite flimsy.</text></item><item><author>vonnik</author><text>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.&lt;p&gt;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.&lt;p&gt;Great Britain&amp;#x27;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.&lt;p&gt;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 &amp;quot;independence&amp;quot; doesn&amp;#x27;t solve, and dealing with special interests is one of them.&lt;p&gt;Best of luck.</text></item><item><author>volatilitish</author><text>As a brit, it&amp;#x27;s strange to see how it&amp;#x27;s being spun here.&lt;p&gt;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.&lt;p&gt;Long term, we now have control of our future.&lt;p&gt;In terms of startups though, the EU is there to serve big businesses and powerful establishment. It&amp;#x27;s there to hinder startups and small businesses. If you&amp;#x27;re pro-small business, then you should be excited about the opportunities we have now.&lt;p&gt;And can anyone on here really stand up for the idiotic cookie law? Can you stand up for the &amp;quot;html link tax&amp;quot;? That&amp;#x27;s just the tip of the iceberg with the meddling from the EU.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>TheOtherHobbes</author><text>Real numbers here.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;openeurope.org.uk&amp;#x2F;today&amp;#x2F;blog&amp;#x2F;how-would-key-export-sectors-fare-under-brexit&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;openeurope.org.uk&amp;#x2F;today&amp;#x2F;blog&amp;#x2F;how-would-key-export-sec...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Some key UK export sectors - especially finance - have a very low probability of being able to carry on as normal.&lt;p&gt;The German car industry accounts for around 3% of GDP. Sales to the UK are less than 1% of German GDP.&lt;p&gt;The UK financial industry accounts for around 10% of GDP. Sales to the EU are around 4% of UK GDP.&lt;p&gt;As a rough guess estimate, post-Brexit disruption is going to lose 1-2% of that, and could lose more - because there&amp;#x27;s very little London can do for Europe that can&amp;#x27;t be done just as easily in Frankfurt.&lt;p&gt;The UK has a lot more to lose than Germany does.&lt;p&gt;But the EU traditionally plays hardball with negotiations. Ask Greece.&lt;p&gt;So there is no chance at all the UK isn&amp;#x27;t going to have to make significant - expensive - sacrifices to keep trading.&lt;p&gt;This vote is literally the most staggeringly stupid and self-destructive act I&amp;#x27;ve seen in my lifetime.&lt;p&gt;Take away the jingoism and the flag-waving and the blatant lies about immigration and sovereignty, and you have a country which relies on a huge captive market voting to - at best - change the terms of access to that market in ways that cannot possibly be more advantageous than they are now.&lt;p&gt;Some trade will continue, but the overall effect on the UK is going to be very negative indeed.</text></comment>
<story><title>Doom, Gloom and Unease: London&apos;s Tech Scene Reacts to Brexit</title><url>http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-24/doom-gloom-and-unease-london-s-tech-scene-reacts-to-brexit</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>p4wnc6</author><text>But it&amp;#x27;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&amp;#x27;s volatility around exactly how such a trade deal will get worked out, but it&amp;#x27;s unrealistic to lump &amp;quot;access to European markets&amp;quot; into one big ball and assume that Brexit means that whole topic will be impacted negatively.&lt;p&gt;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. There doesn&amp;#x27;t seem to be much reason to think such trade deals will be radically changed in a way that damages anyone for the long term.</text></item><item><author>mjevans</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ll take your word on those numbers as they sound reasonable.&lt;p&gt;However I do believe you&amp;#x27;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 &amp;#x2F; benefits which are not so easily counted before the painful divorce is complete.</text></item><item><author>evgen</author><text>I think you have fundementally mixed things up here.  The UK is (was) the second-largest economy in the EU.  If you want to talk about percentage contribution to the EU budget the UK was a net contributor of 8.5 billion pounds (after &amp;quot;rebate&amp;quot;) more than it received from that same EU budget that totals around 125 billion pounds.  So they put in about 7% of the budget and get about 10% of the votes.  Definitely a deal that favors the UK, but let&amp;#x27;s please stick to reality and facts here.&lt;p&gt;[Expat in the UK who could not vote but followed this all quite closely... All of the numbers I quoted can be found in wikipedia if you want to go digging.]</text></item><item><author>IkmoIkmo</author><text>This really is a key point. The UK contributed a net of something like 140m pounds a week or so to the EU, that&amp;#x27;s about 7b pounds on a 1.8 trillion pound economy, or a small (0.3%) fraction or so of the GDP. For that they got 10% or so of the votes in all European affairs, and access to a market (50% of UK exports are to the EU) under favourable trade agreements, which are easily worth 0.3% of GDP in and of itself.&lt;p&gt;Now the UK will not contribute 0.3% of its GDP, lose some of its favourable deals that far exceed 0.3% of GDP, and lose the 10% vote in EU affairs, yet will be subjected to those affairs as part of the inevitable effort of negotiating to keep many (though impossibly all) of the benefits the UK now has as a member.&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s not independence, really. That&amp;#x27;s losing 10% influence in a union which you&amp;#x27;ll still be trading and working with, and who will still be subjecting you to lots of requirements under this new partnership, which you&amp;#x27;ll have a reduced say in.&lt;p&gt;Unless the UK actually wants to be independent in the semantic sense of isolationism, i.e. not deal with the EU at all anymore. Yes, then you&amp;#x27;d have independence, and you&amp;#x27;d also have a country that&amp;#x27;ll be completely wrecked, for the same principles that a broad boycott (e.g. Cuba for many decades, North Korea, Iraq during some of its harshest years etc) is so devastating, because interconnectedness is extremely valuable. That interconnectedness will still be sought for by the UK, but now it can&amp;#x27;t vote and is at the mercy of the largest economy in the world. Obviously the UK&amp;#x27;s economy and power will play a significant role in negotiations, no doubt, but the UK outside of the EU needs the EU more than vice versa.&lt;p&gt;So the independence argument I agree, is quite flimsy.</text></item><item><author>vonnik</author><text>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.&lt;p&gt;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.&lt;p&gt;Great Britain&amp;#x27;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.&lt;p&gt;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 &amp;quot;independence&amp;quot; doesn&amp;#x27;t solve, and dealing with special interests is one of them.&lt;p&gt;Best of luck.</text></item><item><author>volatilitish</author><text>As a brit, it&amp;#x27;s strange to see how it&amp;#x27;s being spun here.&lt;p&gt;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.&lt;p&gt;Long term, we now have control of our future.&lt;p&gt;In terms of startups though, the EU is there to serve big businesses and powerful establishment. It&amp;#x27;s there to hinder startups and small businesses. If you&amp;#x27;re pro-small business, then you should be excited about the opportunities we have now.&lt;p&gt;And can anyone on here really stand up for the idiotic cookie law? Can you stand up for the &amp;quot;html link tax&amp;quot;? That&amp;#x27;s just the tip of the iceberg with the meddling from the EU.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>hsitz</author><text>&amp;quot;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.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Do you know what you&amp;#x27;re talking about?  That&amp;#x27;s a sincere question.  My understanding is that the UK&amp;#x27;s significant trading partners are members of the EU, and that it&amp;#x27;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.</text></comment>