Summary: Why did UK elites have a hysterical reaction to the vote for Brexit? There is not one answer. Andrew Fentem (engineer, inventor) explains one logical answer: it threatens their supply of cheap workers. Also, I recommend putting The Register on your reading list if you are interested in the IT industry (changing times requires new sources of info).
“Fear and Brexit in Tech City:
Digital ‘elite’ are having a nervous breakdown“
By Andrew Fentem at The Register (“Biting the hand that feeds IT”).
See the money paragraph in red.
…While some sections of the British press celebrate the Brexit vote in the UK, in the technology press there has been much gnashing of teeth and rending of garments.
Forbes interviewed a clearly traumatised Brent Hoberman – of Lastminute.com fame – who seems to be in need of a reassuring cuddle: “People feeling rejection. I think this is what the Leave campaign underestimated: the psychology of rejecting openness.” Sensitive Brent’s words will no doubt remind “Peep Show” fans of this classic scene {a UK show about 2 omega men.}…
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Preening international elitists like Hoberman are exactly what Brexit voters so dislike. While the self-styled “digital elite” talk in therapy-speak about European peace, love, and understanding, they are masking their true motivation – which is the freedom to exploit low-cost mobile tech labour. Cheap labour was the top reason cited by Tech City startups for voting Remain.
Whatever happens after Brexit, tech poseurs will remain in the UK because the global elite just love London. It’s a wealthy, well-connected, cool, creative city with a ready supply of precarious labour and an impressive money-laundering infrastructure.
Last week, I met up with a friend who is the head of software for a large, well-known British technology company. Like a lot of the Remainers in the tech press, he was complaining that he had to do most of his recruitment abroad – such as from Eastern Europe.
So I asked him what levels of salaries he was offering. The answer, it turned out, was £25k a year for junior roles. I was quite shocked. In the very early 1990s I was briefly employed as a junior coder and was paid about the going rate back then: £19k. Since those days, general compound inflation has been approximately 100 per cent, and rents have increased approximately 200 per cent.
When I asked why they were offering so little, my friend replied that with the EU’s mandatory freedom of movement, the owners of the company “know that they can get away with it”.
In the early stages of my career I was an engineering apprentice and benefited from a considerable amount of on-the-job training. Apparently British tech employers no longer feel the need to provide that, either.
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A member of Britain’s elite explains Brexit, why the opposition to mass immigration…
“Those poor and uneducated people are xenophobic.”
It’s a bad sign when a nation’s elites consider the peons’ beliefs to be psychotic. It suggest a ruling class that has lost touch with its subjects. The process of re-connection ion can be painful.
Some things never change.
About the author
Andrew Fentem pioneered multitouch techniques several years before Apple’s iPhone (see the story here). See his other articles at The Register. See his website, showcasing his latest (and mind-blowing) invention (more about it here).
For More Information
If you liked this post, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. See all posts about immigration, and especially these…
- Must our population grow to ensure prosperity? — Spoiler: no!
- Do we have a shortage of workers, or just cheap employers? Part one; and part two.
- The airlines’ crippling pilot shortage: another bogus “skills” crisis.
- The shortage of STEM workers: another bogus crisis crafted to benefit the 1%.
- Look at immigration policy to see our government respond to its masters.
- Immigration: a cause of Brexit, denied by the Left.