Giving up on the UK?

During the last week I have seen posts on Facebook from a few significant people giving up on the UK. Those people have been working to try to help the people of the UK see sense, some of them writing, some producing videos – all fact based – demonstrating the absurdity of Brexit.

I share those feelings, so I understand them entirely, yet there is almost a sense of guilt attached.  John F Kennedy in a speech in 1961 paraphrased Charles F. Aked: The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.' On the other hand, those people leaving Germany in 1933 had got to the point they realised their own survival depended on it.

For about a year I have believed the UK has passed tipping point. I keep hoping I am wrong, but sadly nothing in the last 12 months has convinced me that I am. I see the possibility of Scotland seceding as lifeboat for some; the reunification of Ireland for others and if Wales secedes yet more.

Companies leaving the UK

Almost every day there is another company that announces it will be leaving the UK.

The Institute of Directors is a business organisation for company directors, senior business leaders and entrepreneurs. It is the UK’s longest running organisation for professional leaders, having been founded in 1903 and incorporated by Royal Charter in 1906. They surveyed 1,200 of the 30,000 companies they represent and warned that 29% of firms had either moved part of their businesses abroad already or were planning to do so as a result of Brexit.

Airbus directly employs 14,000 people in the UK with another 110,000 indirectly as supplier chains – warned of potentially disastrous effects of no deal on its UK activities. Some people claim this is just project fear. Tom Enders, the chief executive of Airbus till recently, said: 'Please don’t listen to the Brexiters’ madness, which asserts that because we have huge plants here we will not move and we will always be here. They are wrong.'

Doctors leaving the UK

As far back as March 2018 the NHS admitted that nearly 5,500 doctors and medical researchers from the EU currently working in England were considering leaving the UK. Add to that a further 1,000 from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The report found that 'of those considering leaving, more than a third (39%) have made plans to leave, meaning almost one in five EU doctors (18%) have made plans to leave the UK'!

Professionals leaving the UK

Almost every day I hear of EU27 citizens leaving the UK. NBC News described it as a Brexit Brain Drain: Professionals Wave Goodbye, Head to Europe.

'A poll of E.U. nationals in Britain by the law firm Baker McKenzie found that 56 percent of the skilled workers surveyed stated that they were highly likely or quite likely to leave before the outcome of the Brexit negotiations is known.'

'The Bank of England estimates that 75,000 financial services jobs could be lost following Brexit, according to the BBC.'

Is it too late?

I really don't know if it is too late for the UK.

I may be right that the UK has passed tipping point and has started on the spiral downwards, or I could be wrong and it may pull back from the brink. The coming weeks and months will show.