November 11, 2021 - 7:00am
As previously noted on UnHerd, the New York Times does love a pop at Britain — and Brexit in particular. For instance, from earlier this year, we have this apocalyptic report, which helped spread the “plague island” label. Cheers for that.
The newspaper’s latest dispatch from the Brexit battle-lines is a feature on the British entrepreneurs setting-up business in Estonia.
There’s some interesting tidbits in there about how this innovative Baltic state — already famous for its e-governance and e-voting — is now using e-residency to attract foreign investment. However, the focus on British business people provides yet another chance to catastrophise Brexit.
Admittedly, the UK’s departure has led to many British businesses registering in EU countries to get round new regulatory hurdles. For some of them Estonian e-residency certainly is an attractive option. But does this really amount to a “brain drain” as the NYT suggests?
For a start it worth pointing out that the worst fears about Brexit have not come to pass. The UK financial sector, for instance, has not decamped en masse for Paris or Frankfurt. Though net migration from the EU to the UK fell following the referendum result and before Covid, it was still positive.
Is Estonia an exception? It’s hard to establish definitive figures, but there are something like 15,000 Estonians living in the UK and less than a thousand Brits living in Estonia. Of course, the online nature of the e-residency scheme means that you don’t physically have to move. But, if British companies are making good use of that, what’s the problem? I wouldn’t describe British entrepreneurs doing business with Europe from Britain as a loss to this country.
By coincidence, the idea of a British brain drain has been reinforced by a chart that’s been doing the rounds on Twitter this week:
https://twitter.com/valaafshar/status/1448324464555532289?s=21
It shows the number of highly educated migrants to OECD countries by country of birth. Britain comes fourth the global rankings, behind only India, China and the Philippines. So is this the evidence we’re looking for?
Again, it’s certainly not proof of a Brexit brain drain — because these OECD figures (the latest available) date back to 2015/16. A likelier explanation is that this is a language effect — in particular, the result of the UK’s close links with other English-speaking nations.
Of course, the Covid pandemic has disrupted migration patterns around the world. So it’s hard to say where we’ll be once the dust settles. What we can be certain about is that migration from the UK to the EU will either be up or down. If it’s up, then it will be portrayed as a brain drain. If it’s down, then it will be lamented as a loss of opportunity for British workers. Either way, Brexit will be blamed.
Peter Franklin is Associate Editor of UnHerd. He was previously a policy advisor and speechwriter on environmental and social issues.
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SubscribeThe NYT is a hopeless case.
https://www.nationalreview.com/news/new-york-times-retracts-massive-exaggeration-of-children-hospitalized-by-covid-19/
As for blaming Brexit for absolutely everything, from any kind of migration pattern to the fact that someone stubbed their toe this morning in Pontefract – I think we’ve just got to get settled in for the long haul, as this tendency is not going to go anywhere quickly.
My approach is: identify the sources of the perma-whinging and either avoid or carefully steer the conversation away from known “triggers”.
Here’s a very insightful article about what happened to NYT: https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/how-the-new-york-times-broke-journalism
It’s basically changed its core business model to adopt Facebook/Twitter type AI assisted emotional manipulation technologies for profit making.
This all stems from the rein of Mark Thompson ex DG of the BBC who was CEO of NYT 2012 to 2020 and was an avid Remainer; in his tenure the NYC produced a string of toxic articles on UK. Just super-biased and no more ‘impartial’ than his BBC !
I think you are right Philip. I also suspect David Miliband who is now part of the Democrat set in NY has a hand in it too.
It is because the NYT knows that anti-Britain articles are good for the clicks.
But they need not worry. It looks increasingly likely that The Donald will be back in the White House in 2024 and then they will have a surge in subscriptions.
Yay!
Yup, just as Unherd knows that anti-Europe articles are good for the clicks.
I’ve said it before, but it’s worth repeating: If the NYT doesn’t understand the country in which it is located and struggles to accurately report what is happening there, why would any other country expect more accurate coverage?
Soon you will find headlines like “ WWII bomber found on the moon” and “Hitler was born a woman” on the front pages of New York Times. Just let it be.
LOL