Brexit's Tech Brain Drain (opens in new tab)

True, but May has (repeatedly) threatened to go out 'without a deal' if she can't get terms she likes.

The UK has to somehow bluff its way into a negotiation position and I fail to see how all these statements and laws are compatible with each other.

Well, once that's done as far as I understand it there is no way back, agreement or not, the clock ticks and after 2 years are up the separation is a fact. If people are hoping for a collapse of the Brexit after that point they are delusional, the only way this would reverse after that is by a new application, and I really don't see that ending up with the UK being in a better position after such a process than they have today. All kinds of exceptions were made to keep the UK in the EU, those are extremely unlikely to be granted a second time, especially not if the UK falls apart and Scotland ends up remaining.

The British prime minister is now making a strong play to pull Scotland out of the EU against their wishes, we'll likely see a race between the 'brexit' negotiators on the UK side and the Scottish 'remain' camp who will try to stay in without first exiting.

This is understandable from all points of view, the British government would rather like to negotiate from a slightly stronger position and the for the Scots because they were told they had to renegotiate their access to the single market if they seceded from the UK. Now that the British wish to exit that point has become moot which will most likely swing the referendum towards the Scots exiting the union. They probably feel quite cheated in Scotland.

That's the UK politicians position, not mine. They could have easily stopped last week. "brexit means brexit" and "no deal we leave anyway". Blustering tough talk but who it is supposed to impress I'm not sure about. The self-destructive element is on the UK side and the sooner they realize it the better.

> The elites in Britain basically didn't seem to care (and perhaps encouraged) the importation of labor to drive down market prices of labor both for untrained as well as trained labor

And you have hit on a basic truth there. A fair part of the vote to leave was because of economic hardship. A fair part of that is because of the perception of "people coming over here and working for less". But every employee has an employer. Government and business can do a lot to set industrial policy, starting with funding for education (for doctors, nurses etc), and minimum wage levels (for field & factory workers).

Emphasis on "can". They didn't.

And how many were hired in the previous December? When it comes to The Guardian, I find that numbers can be very "flexible" when the narrative demands it.

I actually would be one of the developers to come in. As bad as your problems are in the UK, the USA are far worse especially with your browser history effectively being able to be sold to the highest bidder[0]

Not mentioned([0]) is the fact that hiring and recruiting companies will be able to [ab]use this data

[0] http://www.marketwatch.com/story/your-browser-history-could-...

The EU have been consistently clear that those freedoms are "all or nothing" - you don't e.g. get free trade without free movement, end of.

I would be delighted if England gets the "all" deal like Norway, but that's unlikely since to the Leavers that's a "why bother" Brexit In Name Only.

Both sides have said we won't be in the single market.

Although this particular instance is distasteful, as a general rule do you not think individuals should be free to choose who to rent their properties to?

What's the alternative; forcing him to accept tenants he doesn't want?

Their education mostly or totally happened at the expense of other states and the way they're being treated means that they don't get adequate recognition for their work, so yes, exploited.

They can go to work in other, more civilized, western democracies where they're not made to feel unwelcome. Standards of living in the UK aren't that special and these people are there because they're tied to specific research projects, not because it's a great country.

Perhaps GP is referring to Marx's theory of exploitation in which surplus value is appropriated from the workers. Many people, especially in jobs which require a lot of equipment (e.g physics, theoretical physics) can't enter self-employment or become bourgeoisie themselves, in which case they are almost forced by societal structure to stay as a member of the proletariat and thusly paid wages for labour-time during which they perform extra labour which is collected as surplus.

That's a reasonable take on what GP was referring to, though I'm not sure if that's it. Exploitation of human capital is everywhere, whether in Britain or China. The standards of living and 'civilised Western democracy' are meaningless and irrelevant to the theory of exploitation.

The political climate in the UK is currently leaning towards being hostile towards benefits being paid to EU citizens.

Why should I pay taxes for benefits that I can't use?

I'll go somewhere where I'm wanted.

It seems they are reconsidering, so no, not voluntary. They voluntarily started worked, now things have changed and they do not think that was a good decision.

Jerf, you're a smart fellow, this comment is not at your usual level. The EU exists solely to reduce the chances of war, further commerce and to reduce the profile of nation states.

The 'take it or leave it' attitude has to do with the founding principles of the EU, if a club has a founding principle and you do not wish to subscribe to it then by definition you can't be part of the club. Putting the founding principles of the EU on the chopping block to deal with the internals of a single country is not acceptable.

In such a situation the single country then has the option to either resolve their internal conflict or to leave the union.

This has nothing to do with over-centralized government or the Trump administration, it's simply the reason why the EU exists in the first place.

The UK already has a special position within that EU, amplified by virtue of being an island. The illusion that the UK can 'go it alone' is still very strong but I suspect that when the rubber meets the road there will be some pretty harsh and quick realizations that the promised utopia is not going to arrive. The brunt of the impact will land squarely in the demographic that voted 'brexit' so at least there is some justice but it will also be felt elsewhere in the country.

The UK's days as an independent world power were counted in the 60's. Being part of the EU was good for the UK and good for the EU. A UK that will be further diminished when and if the Scots leave the union.

All in all this is a very bad decision made by the UK and the UK alone, to ask the EU to put their founding principles on hold for the UK was going to have a very predictable outcome.

The irony of all this is that now the UK will go into a very uncertain phase the best exit of which is to rejoin the EU at a later date, but then it will be without any privileged position, likely without their own coin and likely with a much worse negotiation position than they had so far.

Please do not point your finger at the EU about this debacle, it belongs solely to the UK and specifically to BJ, Farage et al. If you wish to apportion blame they should be your primary targets, and May you secondary for going further down a road that need not be taken at all.

  The EU chose to not make solutions available and stuck it into a "take it or leave it" basket.

What do you suggest the EU should have done? Free movement is one of the cornerstones of the EU and pretty much not up for negootiation. This includes associated countries like Norway or Switzerland.

So I'm really curious: What, do you suggest, should the EU have offered?

Britain didn't take advantage of the tools it had available. Britain could have kicked out people who stayed more than 6 months without a job, for example. But they didn't.

> I hope my outreach has a positive net impact on the HN community.

And of course on your wallet.

A lot has changed in Poland trough past couple years especially for developers. You can now get decent salary in major cities. It's still not as good as in UK where you can have decent salary in cities with population of 30k+ but it's getting there, plus there is always Germany witch is close enough.

Quick story. I am working for small UK holidays company located in one of the biggest IT hubs outside of London. Our whole dev team is made up from non UK, EU citizens. Recently we had openings for mid backend dev and junior/mid frontend dev roles and only about 20% of CVs was from native UK citizens (mostly, highly under qualified even for junior role/couldn't pass FizzBuzz). Rest of candidates was mix of EU, visas and double citizenship and we ended up offering both positions to two EU citizens.

If UK government will ban employment of people from outside of UK or make it difficult or expensive then small companies like ours will not be able to operate.

I see that developers are looking more and more for jobs outside of the UK. Recruiters and EU employers also can see what is going on and I'm receiving more job offers from them, offering help with relocation outside of UK.

There are some decent companies on the tech area. Poland is one of the "cheap" EU countries with decent workers, that's a good reason to have a big office there.

I have not made fun of everyone, I only pointed out the perennial "flee to Canada" claims in light of the most recent "bad thing."