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Comment by jacquesm | Hacker News Reader

It's subtle.

The UK is a net contributor to the EU, but it also has the financial center of the EU in London. On top of that some areas of the UK are net recipients of EU money, others are contributors.

Losing the financial center alone may already tip the balance out of favor, and for some areas (notably Scotland) the loss will be much larger.

Back of the envelope has the UK in worse shape without the EU and access to their market than with.

Regardless of what will happen now, the UK will lose the financial center (it will most likely end up in Frankfurt am Main), Scotland will secede from the UK and will apply (assuming a majority votes for that proposal) to the EU as an independent entity, much like Ireland.

The one thing this referendum has already achieved is that the position of the UK on the world stage is marginalized further.

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Simply put, London hands over money to the EU which hands most of it back to regions that London wouldn't have handed the money to in the first place (Scotland, North of England, Wales...somewhat ironically since many of them voted leave..).

I think the reason we are no longer part of the EU is in part bad PR on the part of the EU on what it actually did.

Which is why "what is the EU/what does the EU do" type queries have trended on google after the referendum.

People suddenly wondering how fucked/non-fucked we are since the result.

And of course, Hong Kong and Singapore will also stop being financial centres, since they haven't been in the EU to begin with.

That's disingenuous and you know it.

One of the main attractions of London as a banking centre is its EU membership. Sure, there are others, but it seems extremely likely that companies will relocate because they judge access to the EU market as more important.

Possibly, although I wouldn't rush it. Worth seeing which countries will remain in the EU by the time UK finalises the exit.

There might not be a UK by the time the exit is finalized, that is the brutally honest subject of this thread.

There might not be an EU by the time Scotland gets a vote to secede and begins an application to join the EU.

Fascinating time to be alive.

There might not be an EU by the time Scotland gets a vote to secede

Doubtful: As long as France and Germany are on board, the EU will survive in some fashion.

The comment[1] of German economist Max Otte[2] regarding the British vote? Good riddance, now we can stop accomodating UK sensibilities. Also remember, when the UK wanted to join the EEC? De Gaulle sent them packing twice...

[1] http://www.tagesschau.de/wirtschaft/otte-interview-zu-brexit...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Otte

> Doubtful: As long as France and Germany are on board, the EU will survive in some fashion.

I would go further than that, while you are absolutely right, long before we reach that point we have the "second core" of Belgium, Italy and Spain, none of which are actually leaving anytime soon. Can add Portugal, Austria and Luxembourg as a "sure takers" third wave.

It's from 2014 (so in particular before the refugee crisis), but a look at Special Eurobarometer 415 [1] might still be instructive, eg QA13.3 [2]. This could have saved Cameron some embarrassment...

[1] http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_415_en.p...

[2] http://i.imgur.com/2kNwdtf.png

> Doubtful: As long as France and Germany are on board, the EU will survive in some fashion.

I disagree. The UK was the third largest net contributor to the EU, and one of only ~10 member states that have historically made positive net contributions.

Its influence and role as a net importer from the EU will see it win a relatively favorable exit, including access to the single market.

The UK exit, in addition to the financial impact on the EU, will inspire many other member states on the verge of leaving to do the same.

The EU is already on thin ice, and the UK voting to leave may have just been the straw that broke the camel's back.

> Its influence and role as a net importer from the EU will see it win a relatively favorable exit, including access to the single market. > The UK exit, in addition to the financial impact on the EU, will inspire many other member states on the verge of leaving to do the same.

I disagree, UK will not have an easy exit exactly for the reason you say. It will make leaving an easy thing.

And you only see the economical part, UK has been seen in the rest of the EU as an obstacle to the EU and closer to USA than UE.

Right now, they don't have so much sympathies apart from some far right parties. And I wouldn't like to be friend with them

The UK was the third largest net contributor to the EU

To keep things in perspective, the UK's contributions amounted to 10.7% of the general budget in the period 2007-2013.

> Worth seeing which countries will remain in the EU by the time UK finalises the exit

All of them? The only ones asking a referendum are two far right parties in Holland and France

Between Marine Le Pen and Geert Wilders they can still do a lot of damage to those countries but NL without the EU is a joke and France has way too much to lose (more than the UK did) so I highly doubt (hope?) that this will not come to pass.

Le Pen has less elected member of parliament than I have fingers on one of my hands (and I have the regular five fingers by hand).

Even in their "great swipe" of 2014, they got 14 mayors total. In a country counting roughly 36 000 mayors (yes, I know ...).

The FN is actually very very weak, it keeps being seen doing huge jump forwards in numbers but that's mostly because the others are being very dumb and for the FN a single new member of parliament is a 50% jump ahead, which makes for a good headline.

The FN biggest strength is actually the media attention they get and how it drives them forward, there was a study about that showing they were te party being given the most media attention and it giving them the biggest result boost (despite "we are ignored by the media" being on their main card, like all populist parties)

Further that, the FN has often been played by both Left and Right to weaken the opposition.

London was a banking capital long before the EU existed. And Hong Kong became a banking capital under British governance.

Look at it another way. Europe has been unable to recreate Silicon Valley. What makes you think it'll be so easy to recreate the City?

Europe has been unable to recreate Silicon Valley for a large number of reasons none of which have anything to do with why they can't move their financial center to Frankfurt.

Just a couple of them:

- no single language market of 300M people

- different attitude towards investment

- different attitude towards entrepreneurship

- no reason to cluster that much in such a small space

In fact, the US has been unable to 'recreate Silicon Valley', it's a world-wide accidental one-off and drawing parallels between its one-off-existence, lack of being replicated anywhere at all and the fact that London was a banking capital before the EU existed does nothing to guarantee Londons continued existence as a banking capital outside an otherwise unified EU once a large number of very relevant parties pulls out and is drawing very strange conclusions out of unrelated data.

The biggest hits from the brexit will be felt in London and it is already happening.

http://fortune.com/2016/06/24/london-brexit-jobs/

> Europe has been unable to recreate Silicon Valley for a large number of reasons none of which have anything to do with why they can't move their financial center to Frankfurt.

I'd argue that a lot of the reasons overlap. The key ones being: pre-existing access to capital, access to talent, and tolerance for risk-taking.

Capital is very easy to move (and is already moving), banking talent is not rare and tolerance for risk taking? We're talking about banking here. The tolerance for risk taking in banking goes just so far that you are not fired if the risk is covered before you are found out. Start-ups and banking have very little to do with each other.

I'd like to see a start-up succeed under the kind of risk-averse attitude that's prevalent in a bank and the kind of reporting duties they have.

Note that NYC is the banking center of the United States (and to some extent of the world) and that NYC also did not manage to re-create Silicon Valley.

20-somethings at Wall Street and City firms are making billion dollar trades--ones where even a small amount of risk can yield huge losses. That takes an appetite for risk. Those firms have pipelines funneling in the top graduates from the top schools. They've got access to (rare) talent. They've got the connections with individual and institutional investors that can raise billions of dollars on tight timelines to finance mergers, acquisitions, or expansion. That's access to capital that could move but isn't necessarily going to. And they've got a well-developed supporting infrastructure of accountants, lawyers, and analysts helping to keep the gears turning.

You can't easily recreate that somewhere else.

These are good points and I don't understand the downvotes. Silicon Valley is great ecosystem for startups but once they start to grow big, they do need financial services from the many many firms on wall street. That is a different kind of talent and I think SV (and perhaps HN as well) fails to understand the importance of the availability of capital instruments and prudent financial advice that is available so easily just across the country.

Underestimating the soft diplomatic skills of the English. It has always been their strength, not treaties. In no time you will see London be an Asian financial hub. They didn't need to be one before because they had it easy with the EU. But when they lose that business, they'll get to work in Asia. The distance won't matter.

Currently a lot of fincancial products can be created and managed in London, since once approved there, they are automatically approved in all other EU member states, too.

This of course will have to change once the UK has left the EU, making the people involved in these processes one of the first to be moved to Franfkurt etc.

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