In addition, with our currency tanking, there is the speculation that our national assets are being picked up too cheaply.
Many people work at ARM, some in Cambridge UK and some abroad. Those people - some of the smartest people I know - are still around, and even if ARM were to dramatically collapse under the new management, they would get jobs elsewhere very quickly. Perhaps they'd join start ups developing RISC-V chips, which would be a net benefit to everyone.
It is UK based. The profits it makes, and people it employs, have a direct effect on our national and local budgets.
It attracts high-class talent to the UK, further increasing its national importance.
The services it creates acts as an excellent advertisement for the UK's technology industry.
As you point out, many UK pensions schemes are invested in it.
Personally, I'm not entirely comfortable with the phrase "national asset" - but that's the common term used.
> if ARM were to dramatically collapse under the new management, they would get jobs elsewhere very quickly.
Tell that to those employed by Nokia.
FWIW I work, from home in the UK, for a multinational software company which is largely based in the US.
I also work from home in the UK for a multinational software company largely based in the US, but I understand that not every company is organised the same way.
People may not be able to work in France after Britain leaves the EU so a company relying on moving those people would be on shaky ground at the moment.
My point is why is ARM a "UK national asset" when if it were located only about 200 miles away it could be a "French national asset", and really it would make hardly any difference to anyone. The ownership would be the same (pension funds etc). The people working for it would be the same. If it does make a difference at all, that's just because we (humans) make it difficult for ourselves, not for any real reason.
In fact ARM has several offices in France (http://www.arm.com/about/company-profile/locations-around-th...). It's only a "UK national asset" because the company is registered in the UK, for historical reasons. For all I know there are some employees in France who are so pivotal to ARM as a company that if they left the thing would collapse. If that hypothetical was true why wouldn't you call it a French national asset already?
The whole thing of nationalities and borders is based on very minor and arbitrary distinctions, so any argument that we try to derive based on those assumptions quickly descends into "ex falso quodlibet".
The fact they're in the UK means that a lot of the money they make ends up here, which means more money in the economy near me and more money for the government to spend on things that benefit me.
Nationalities and borders may well be arbitrary (I agree), but that doesn't mean they don't matter.
When you and your friends work remotely from the UK, you pay income tax and VAT and all the rest. (Corporation tax is both very hard to collect and has just been reduced, yet again, by the outgoing chancellor)
Now I'll grant that for some software/IP-based companies you cannot work from where you choose, but those companies are broken. Also you say you don't like to work remotely, but I think if you worked for a company which was organized around this (as I do) you really would prefer it, as there is hardly any down-side.
Anecdote: looking for a flat in Cambridge, I found a great one overlooking Market Square, last two floors above that cornish pasty store whatever it is called. We got a good deal because we agreed to take over the lease immediately from the two current occupants, who seemed in a terrible rush to leave.
I asked them why, they said Index Ventures just invested double digit millions in their company and part of the terms included an immediate (literally) move to Silicon Valley. Unfortunately, I've forgotten the name of the company but the image of wealthy Americans sniping off the best British companies stuck in my head ever since.
As someone who stopped his electronic engineering education in no small part because all the engineering jobs ran away to places like south korea in the 80s and 90s. Now the guarantee that the uk will join ttip since uk elites are all for it and they dont have the eu technocrats slowing them down. The only jobs left in that hell hole of a country I was born in will literally be call centers and shop floor retail.
Yup. just a sad day in a long list of sad days.
"Funny cause' it's true" springs to mind.
Look, I'm very much saddened by Brexit and by the sale of ARM but that is just pure histrionics.
Even a cursory glance at the UK's export figures reveals that there is still an awful lot of science and technology research and development still going on here.
There's still an aweful lot of electronics design and manufacturing going on too, you just have to look for it.
You want to know what living in a hell hole is like, try asking people who've had to put they're families and all their possessions in a leaky dingy to get away from actual danger.
Even ARM - one of the biggest tech companies in the UK only employs about 4000 people.
And yes. Hell hole. Not a complete cess pit. But by European standards (and particularly Swiss standards which is now my comparator) outside of London there is no hope, no jobs and a very depressed population that are all living day to day on credit barely able to make rent let alone feed themselves.
By and large those families whove been forced to put and all their possessions in a leaky dingy to get away from the French and UK sponsored terrorists trying to overthrow Assad are all used to a much higher standard of living than the average Brit. Out of the frying pan into the fire.
Citation needed. For pretty much all of that .
random sample:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/dec/07/france-funding...
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/news/arming-syrian-rebels/
http://www.boredpanda.com/before-after-war-photos-aleppo-syr...