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Comment by planetjones | Hacker News Reader

I fail to see what the panic is about. Britain will not want to lose access to the single market, so it is inevitable that nothing will materially change regarding immigration. Look at Switzerland whose citizens voted to control EU immigration and are now being told it is impossible. Even implementing a policy which says Switzerland can limit immigration to job sectors where the unemployment level is high is meeting resistance. And why is immigration such a worry anyhow. It is not like Britain would never have immigration. Last time I looked the USA startup scene does not seem to struggle even though they do not have an open borders policy with nearby countries.

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AFAIK all the treaties Switzerland has with the European Union include a guillotine clause that cancels all treaties when one is broken. This is due to the difficulty getting the required number of member countries into agreement on treaties. This mean that if Switzerland instituted policies infringing on the free movement treaties, it'd need to renegotiate every single other treaty, potentially with less favorable terms, and long negotiation periods, during which Switzerland is effectively cut off from the rest of the EU. It's not impossible, but doesn't seem worth the cost for something that size.

I have written an analysis of what might happen next year in Switzerland and elsewhere:

https://medium.com/@octskyward/ok-what-now-e3f64d38f7#.q4vch...

It is almost without question that the Swiss will hold another referendum in the coming months, as their deadline for implementing the previous referendum's legislation (which they are legally bound to do) will expire in February. However due to the latency on getting new laws through Parliament they really have to start now.

There is no way to renegotiate with the EU because the EU sees any geographically European population that chooses to defy the EU as some kind of terrorist, with whom negotiation is unthinkable. They refused to negotiate with the Swiss and are now demanding the Swiss join the EU proper or else there won't be any further negotiations (ever). The Swiss do not want to join the EU. So the stage is set for a showdown.

The best case outcome for the EU is a new vote in which the Swiss choose to continue the status quo for a little while longer.

To add to your point about the USA, how many trade tariffs tend to apply to service-based companies with a tech focus (i.e. the majority of tech startups)?

From what I've seen, the answer is pretty much none. So long as barriers to tech talent aren't put in place, there's basically nothing holding back the UK tech scene. The fear being generated by the media (along with those that repeat those fears without critical examination) is more damaging than the situation as it stands today. We're talking about something that only happened within the last few weeks, the sky isn't falling, it's all a failure of perception.

Completely agree. A full brexit could actually be beneficial for Britain as we could get tech talent from anywhere i.e. a level playing field for the whole world, not preference to those countries geographically nearby. I do not think it will happen though.

The main reason Leave won is because there was strong popular demand for "control of immigration", which implies leaving the Single Market. That doesn't mean the government won't quietly disregard that, but it does mean it's considerably less likely we take a Norway-like approach than it would have been if the public was instead obsessed with minutae like the Common Fisheries Policy or European Court of Justice.

Immigration restrictions are the least of worries for UK-based startups not focusing on the domestic market though, especially in fintech which has traditionally been London's strength. If you need company registrations, offices, contract and potentially even servers and compliance staff to be based in the EU to comply with certain regulations, it suddenly makes a lot less sense to spend all the extra overheads of having your [main] office in London, especially if other startups on the scene are starting to migrate and you don't want multiple offices. And whilst EU negotiators might want to avoid tariffs regardless of whether the UK stays in the Single Market or not, they have very little reason to secure trade agreements with the UK that grant UK firms passporting rights.

Immigration is a worry because it is no longer simply intra-EU nations allowing free movement of their members, but the millions of low-skilled Middle East and North African migrants who've entered the EU in the last few years will be a strain on nation's finances for decades. Couple this with the aging of Europe and automation on the horizon and there is not the need nor the capability to sustain the new EU residents.

If you disagree I'd enjoy a thoughtful response

California has open borders with the other members of the United States.

Almost open: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Department_of_Food_...

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