Many non-EU nationals working in the UK, and from those I've spoken with, it will become a bit easier and fairer for them and with that, all non-uk nationals as a whole.<p>Sure, won't be able to underpay people so easily as they have done with EU nationals and that is a good thing.<p>But I appreciate that cheap staff is always a boon for any company in whatever industry, but that's not fair on the people though really.<p>As for the scare tech founders off aspect, the article seems to slant it's focus upon European ones and that may well be true, more so as the UK will not be part of the EU.<p>Which in effect means that the playing field is fairer for all non-UK nationals as it removes that EU national privilege.<p>But let us see how it pans, and would be great to tag an article for review a year or two later on in which clarity and actualities can replace speculation.
I'm a US citizen in the UK on a visa where I can be self-employed and start companies. It looks like the new system has basically the same process for getting this type of visa (which is to say it's still a pain in the ass) except now EU citizens have to jump through the same hoops instead of just moving over.<p>This is going to be a double whammy for the UK tech scene. First, by leaving the EU, the UK hugely shrinks a company's addressable market and reduces the incentive for anyone to come here to start a company instead of somewhere with a bigger market, like the US, Germany, or whatever.<p>Second, by making it as hard for EU citizens to get a visa to the UK as it is for them to get one the US, there's going to be a lot less incentive for people to come to the UK. The UK is a great place to live, but tech jobs here have a <i>lot</i> lower pay than the US and there is a much smaller tech scene. If the effort for moving to both is roughly the same, a lot of people are going to follow the money.<p>Go into any dev office in London and you are likely to find as many Spanish, French, etc. developers as British developers. By cutting out that supply of labor, it's going to get a lot harder to hire developers and there will be less developers around with ideas who have the legal ability to start their own company. Maybe that will push local wages up, but maybe it will just depress the tech scene overall and push more business to other countries.
Incorporating a startup in the UK becomes much less attractive after Brexit because EU markets are not easily accessible anymore. I think EU founders will take into account this first. If you add paperwork on top of that I don't see why founders wouldn't just incorporate let's say in Estonia and just travel to London on a tourist Visa to look for funding if needed.
With so few applications, I'm not sure it's a big deal. I'm not sure the UK really has a Silicon Valley pull factor (I'm aware of what's been dubbed Silicon Roundabout). Government body endorsement sounds like a terrible idea for discerning viable startups, but I guess it renders the whole thing pointless if anyone can apply through the same route.<p>The changes around how IR35's being addressed seem a much bigger issue to me, not that even that will affect every startup.