Quote:
Originally Posted by nomadking
If France or Germany could easily do it, they would have done so long ago. A lot of the service sector will be internal to each country and relatively local to the area. Little point in opening a Starbucks or a cleaning company etc.in a German town to serve customers in England.
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The problem is the banking sector. This is largely electronic, therefore the companies can locate their offices in any country with little or no impact on trading. HSBC has their world headquarters in London, but they could just as easily operate from Frankfurt, Paris or any other city. In fact, if the government introduces restrictions on free travel with europe and they can't find enough qualified staff here, they may be tempted to move their headquarters, with the loss of tens of thousands of jobs.