People and companies are starting to leave the UK – we need Indyref2 soon!

The UK government seems to be moving towards a hard Brexit, perhaps even a chaotic one. Of course it might well be that they’ll change their minds after a few meetings in Brussels, but people and companies are already starting to act to protect themselves in case worst comes to worst. It’s clear from the Facebook forum for EU citizens in the UK that a large number of people are already starting to leave the country, and in this article the Financial Times warns that companies will leave soon if there isn’t a transitional deal to prevent Brexit from kicking in as soon as 2019:

The uncertainty over losing rights has made UK-based businesses call for early transition guarantees. Without those, big banks in London say they will take decisions assuming there will be no transition.

If there is no agreement by March 2018 — basically one year before Britain’s formal exit in 2019 — the value of the interim deal diminishes dramatically for the UK. Companies would already have taken action to protect their own interests. The Treasury is alive to the risk of a City exodus if transition terms are not clear at an early stage.

[…]

That leverage is strengthened by another cold calculation in Paris, Brussels and Berlin: the longer Britain waits for a transition deal to be discussed and agreed, the more likely businesses will decide to move or shift investment away from the UK. For the EU-27, late agreement on transition would maximise relocation while still avoiding a “cliff edge” — sudden and disruptive change for businesses stemming from a sudden exit.

So people have started leaving already, and companies will follow soon, and unfortunately they’ll leave Scotland, too, unless it’s clear that we’re likely to remain within the EU. If we don’t hold Indyref2 till Brexit is done and dusted, they will all have left and found permanent new homes elsewhere, and they’ll be extremely difficult to tempt back to Scotland.

I’m not saying that we need to hold Indyref2 very soon – but just announcing that it definitely will be held in 2018 will make people and companies delay a move away from Scotland, and it might make companies in the rUK explore whether a move to Scotland would be cheaper and easier than relocating to Dubling, Paris, Amsterdam or Berlin.

Indeed, just announcing Indyref2 is likely to have a beneficial effect on the Scottish economy, so I reckon Kenny MacAskill is worrying needlessly when he thinks the economy is doing too badly to allow us to win a new independence referendum now.

If companies are leaving the rUK (but not Scotland) in great numbers during the Indyref2 campaign, surely that will be a great reason for many people to vote Yes.

However, we can’t afford to wait till they’ve all left before we call the referendum. Nicola Sturgeon has been saying exactly the right things recently, reassuring people and companies in Scotland that we won’t be leaving the Internal Market because she’ll call the referendum if the Brexit isn’t soft.

I expect the exodus away from the UK will speed up drastically once Article 50 gets triggered, so that would probably be the best time to announce the date for Indyref2 to ensure that Scotland doesn’t get completely flattened by the Brexit train crash.