Tune into the Cloud: We’ll meet again

Tune into: Brexit

Who would have thought? A Brexit decision!
Time to have a 😉 look what the British may now change:

• Currency: The UK might get its own currency? (Oh, but wait, they already have that)
• Travel: I may need a passport to get into to UK (Uh, I already do)
• Time: They may move to a different time zone (Actualy the’re already there, they may finally abolish summer saving time though)
• Weather: The UK may consider a climate change to mark the departure (Uh, seems already the case, and not just in UK )
• Traffic: The UK may decide to drive on the other (dare I say: wrong) side of the road (you get where we are going with this?).
• Sports: They may no longer participate in EU sporting events ? (Actually the UK already didn’t, it is England, Scotland and Wales, and in addition they have their own commonwealth games, so again, no change)
• Food: UK may decide to no longer eat EU subsidized food like crooked banana’s, and UK cuisine may become a thing? (Uh, unlikely?)
• Work: IT workers from EU will need a visa and a permit (but last time I looked most IT worker immigrants were not from EU but from above mentioned common wealth countries). Call centers with largely international staff may however consider relocating to Amsterdam or back to Dublin and bankers will simply do what they always do (follow the money)
• Cloud, Data-centers and IT: This is not the place (see our published/publishing research for more on this) but suffice to say the leading cloud providers already had announced opening up a local shop in UK before the decision
• Long story, short: Best case the UK relationship to the EU may become like Norway’s, worst case it becomes like Switzerland’s? The way Boris Johnson described it in this mornings Telegraph – as a partnership with free trade and free travel but no European laws and courts – may well be what most Europeans secretly (and not so secretly) longed for already.
• The morale of the story so far: If you happen to have an upcoming election, you may want to carefully consider what you wish/vote for, as you may actually get it.

But kidding aside, the way this will pan out is far from clear. And what is even more unclear is when this may all transpire. While all agree on “a 2 year transition period,” there are vastly different opinions on when these two years may actually start (some even mention 2018) if ever.  And although I told my British colleagues earlier this week: “Goodbye, it was nice knowing you and … Good Luck!” , the twist of taking longer is that the minority that lost this referendum (a.k.a young people) may in fact be the majority by the time this transpires. So who knows – in  the words of Vera Lynn – it may all come down to “We’ll meet again – don’t know where, don’t know when – some sunny day”.

“We’ll meet again” is a 1939 British song performed by Vera Lynn (born Vera Margaret Welsh) which was standard repertoire for many occasions where people said goodbye (including many a funeral). The song is praised for the distinct optimistic undertone, something distinctly missing from most Brexit analysis so far.