[Traster]

This is the problem, no one believes the draw backs of leaving the EU even when businesses are literally pulling out of the country and directly saying it's because of regulatory divergence. It used to be that you could access 500m customers with one set of regulations. Now you can access 450m customers with one set of regulations, and you can access 60m with another, as yet undefined, set of regulations that are guaranteed to change over the next few years. It doesn't take a genius to see that that uncertainty is going to take a toll on business, but it does take a planet brain genius to know that's happening, hear from actually businesses making decisions based on it, and then decide it's not really an issue.

[thu2111]

You're correct. Nobody believes them because so many of these so-called drawbacks have turned out to be lies.

For instance, Goldman Sachs repeatedly claimed they'd be moving their business to Frankfurt in the case of a Leave vote. They even funded the Remain campaign. Now they leased their HQ in London for 25 years: https://news.sky.com/story/goldman-sachs-commits-to-uk-despi... - apparently not planning to leave the country after all.

The EU Commission said it would ban EU companies from trading with British financial in the wake of Brexit. The IMF said it would "cripple" the UK. Brexit supporters said that cutting off the EU from all British financial services would be so self-defeating the Commission wouldn't do it. I was skeptical personally, but so far they were proven right. The Commission keeps extending the so-called "financial passport": https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2019/12/02/eu-threats-c...

N26 say they're leaving because of Brexit, but chose to enter after they knew Brexit had been voted for and the process was well under way. How likely is it this is true, vs N26 failing in the market but being run by a bunch of Remainers who want to deliver a "fuck you"? If they really only just realised now Brexit was happening then they are a monumentally incapable company.

By the way, the EU's unified financial regulation creates problems as well as solutions. For instance it prevented British regulators from stepping in to prevent the foreseen collapse of Icelandic banks. The Icelandic government ended up not having sufficient funds to bail them out. It's discussed here:

https://leftfootforward.org/2016/09/brexit-is-the-financial-...

The government's recommendations after that incident were basically to introduce caveats and more regional control over financial regulation.

[Traster]

Your Goldman link shows Goldman selling their UK headquarters and leasing it back. A headquarters they planned before Brexit. It provides no information as to whether Goldman plan on sub-leasing. The financing of one of their buildings tells you nothing about hteir operations.

Your second claim- that the EU commission would 'ban' EU companies from trading with 'British financial' in the wake of Brexit. I'd love to see a source. You know, a source that doesn't caveat things like "if Britain diverged too far". Oh by the way, I work for a finance company that's moved its legal entity to Amsterdam- so those scare stories are literally what has happened.

I'd love to see any reference you have to what you were claiming would happen with Brexit in 2016. Any reference, because I bet you whatever you thought would happen is wrong. But I'm sure you've got good sources for your conspiracy theory that everyone who points out a problem with Brexit is secretly pushing an ulterior motive. Talk about the damage brexit is doing? you must be 'monumentally incapable' - or, you know, actually running a business.

[thu2111]

Leasing it back ... for 25 years. Pretty critical detail you left out there! Why would you sign a 25 year lease on an expensive HQ for thousands of people if you were about to leave the country?

The EU revoking financial "equivalence" for non-financial reasons is a very well known phenomenon that was extensively discussed in and around the referendum time. They did it to Switzerland so there's been more since. For instance:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/25/london-city...

“If tomorrow Britain is not part of the single market, the City cannot keep this European passport,” Villeroy, who is also governor of the French central bank, told France Inter radio.

Note: no mention here of divergence, merely leaving the single market is enough to be immediately banned. There was lots like that at the time, although it's getting harder to find pre-referendum pages via search engines now.

I work for a finance company that's moved its legal entity to Amsterdam

Nobody ever cared about legal entities. But note you've done that in anticipation of the UK being banned from European markets, despite having no specific announced plans to change financial law in ways that would justify such a ban.