Grab your economic zombie mask: A Halloween no deal Brexit is careening into view.New prime minister Boris Johnson has pledged that the country will leave the European Union on October 31 with or without a deal do or die as he put it.
A year earlier as the foreign secretary, he used an even more colorful phrase to skewer diplomatic concern about the impact of a hard Brexit on business reportedly condensing his position to a pithy expletive: Fuck business.It was only a few years ago during the summer of 2016, following the shock result of the UKs in/out EU referendum, the governments aspiration was to leave in a smooth and orderly manner as the prelude to a close and special future trading partnership, as then PM Theresa May put it.
A withdrawal deal was negotiated but repeatedly rejected by parliament.
The PM herself was next to be despatched.Now, here we are.
The U.K.
has arrived at a political impasse in which the nation is coasting toward a Brexit cliff edge.
Were at the brink here, with domestic politics turned upside down, because no deal is the only leverage left for do or die brexiteers that parliament cant easily block.Ironicbecause theres no majority in parliament for no deal.
But the end of the Article 50 extension period represents a legal default a hard deadline that means the U.K.
will soon fall out of the EU unless additional action is taken.
Of course time itself cant be made to grind to a halt.
So no deal is the easy option for a government thats made doing anything else to sort Brexit really really hard.After three full years of Brexit uncertainty, the upshot for U.K.
business is theres no end in sight to even the known unknowns.
And now a clutch of unknown unknowns seems set to pounce come Halloween when the country steps into the chaos of leaving with nada, as the current government says it must.So how is the U.K.
tech industry managing the risk of a chaotic exit from the European Union?The prevailing view among investors about founders is that Brexit means uncertain business as usual.
Resilience is the mother of entrepreneurship! was the almost glib response of one VC asked how founders are coping.This is no worse than the existential dread that most founders feel every day about something or other, said another, dubbing Brexit just an enormous distraction.
And while he said the vast majority of founders in the firms portfolio would rather the whole thing was cancelled most realize its not going to be so they just want to get on.