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Comment by vernie | Hacker News Reader

Please elaborate

He was very pro-Brexit, then left the country and moved to Singapore.

I don't see how exactly that makes him a terrible human being.

I am not British so I could be viewing it wrong, but I imagine they are calling Dyson a terrible person because he advocated for Brexit, and now that it is happening, he packed up and moved to another country and won't feel any repercussions for something he advocated for.

Any evidence he wouldn't have done the same thing if brexitbhad failed? Would Asia stop being an important market if the UK was in the EU?

Again, I have no skin in this game, but if I did then I would say the only thing that matters is what he did do, not what he would have done.

But everything every brexit supporter has done since 2016 could fit that bill. Unless brexit triggered him moving the company to Singapore, it doesnt make sense to count his brexit support as relevant.

I fail to see how this makes him a terrible human being or a hypocrite.

I assume he still has considerable interest in the UK economy.

And he moved the company to Singapore.

A lot of the more hard core brexiters would like to make the UK like Singapore.

So he is a terrible human being for having pro-Brexit opinions? Right...

Dyson's move to Singapore had nothing to do with Brexit.

> So he is a terrible human being for having pro-Brexit opinions?

Not solely, no. He's terrible for being a spokesman for Brexit as good for Britain and British business, and then moving his British business to Singapore: i.e. for saying one thing and then doing the opposite. Hypocrisy. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jan/23/james-...

He gets a lot of personal benefit from the EU, as well: https://www.fwi.co.uk/news/dyson-defends-his-1-6m-farm-subsi... https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/top-stories/sir-james-dyson...

If you believe that the exodus of businesses, of which this is an example, has "nothing to do with Brexit", then I have a second-hand car plant to sell you.

Yeah okay

These aren't mutually exclusive.

Unclear how that makes him a terrible human being.

Obama was against school choice, but he and all his children went to private schools.

Does that hypocrisy make Obama a terrible human being?

That's only hypocrisy if you misrepresent what "school choice" is a debate about.

The argument isn't "should you be able to send your kids to private schools?", it's "should you be able to take tax revenue from the public system with you when you do?"

Dyson moved it's HQ to Singapore with the CEO stating: “We have seen an acceleration of opportunities to grow the company from a revenue perspective in Asia"

I don't see why this makes Dyson a terrible person.

Hes not going to come out and say "Dyson is leaving because the UK is going to become a terrible place to do business internationally" either, especially after his enthusiastic support for brexit.

Well, his move to Singapore apparently was to address the lack of finding engineering talent in the UK which has been a chronic issue in the UK for a long time.

Simply finding talent elsewhere doesn't make Dyson a 'bad person' and this move has nothing got to do with the EU or Brexit in general.

> address the lack of finding engineering talent in the UK

Which Brexit will make a lot worse

Dyson always seem to struggle to find employees for their HQ in Malmesbury. They pay well, but the work rarely seems all that interesting, and young people don't seem to want to move outside of the main cities to work for a company with a not-so-great reputation.

> address the lack of finding engineering talent

Why can't our "betters" resolve such a problem instead of side-stepping it. That's what a good person would do.

> Why can't our "betters" resolve such a problem instead of side-stepping it. That's what a good person would do.

Because our politicians do not serve the population first. They serve their respective parties and their donors first, no matter the country.

Additionally, improving education systems is hard, expensive and takes longer than a typical election cycle, while it is easy, cost-saving and fast to gut education systems. When shit hits the fan after ~10 years, the politicians who decided to gut the systems often enough are no longer in office.

It's not like he's moving to the EU which I agree would possibly arguably make him seem like a hypocrit. He's moving to a non-EU country tho, so.... ?

EU and Singapore have a (in the process of being ratified) free trade agreement though. Oddly enough, the UK and the EU might not have it.

I am not sure this mattered in the decision much.

October 19, 2018 - Singapore and EU sign free-trade agreement. [0]

January 22, 2019 - Dyson announces move to Singapore. [1]

After such strong support for Brexit, it is not a good look.

[0] https://ec.europa.eu/trade/policy/countries-and-regions/coun...

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/jan/22/dyson-to-...

We have to really recenter what is considered a "terrible human being" I am not for Brexit either, but do not consider those that were in support terrible human beings. Also him moving is irrelevant, and was not related. The turning everything up to 11 is getting pretty tiresome, and really drowns out the things we should be turning up.

Its not the fact he supported it, its the fact he pushed so hard for it, then moved himself and his company out of the UK (almost like he knew it was actually a terrible thing, and it was a bad idea to stay).

Even if that's somehow not true, he won't suffer any of the consequences of brexit.

He tried to extend his mansion stealthily without seeking planning permission.

He's been buying up plenty of agricultural land in prevision of Brexit (which he obviously supported)

Without planning permission! Oh my, how utterly evil. However it would seem this appalling transgression might not have been so despicable after all.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3870830/Billionaire...

It does say a lot about someone's character. His house is listed so he probably thought he would not get permission. But since money is not an issue for him he thought "fuck it, I'll do what I want", and got away with it.

This article covers some of it: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jan/23/james-...