As a well qualified software Dev, I left the UK ten years ago. One of the many experiences that led to that decision was being 'in the front row seats' shall we say, of a software startup that tried everything to get some support from the government.

All it did was earn us extra, inconvenient attention from tax auditors - who naturally found us completely clean. Great demonstration of how much UK Gov cared about innovation to me, at that time.

UK Gov appear obsessed with two things: 1) Their financial sector - which produces nothing of material worth, and 2) strutting on the world stage. Both great hobbies of a hard-core elite who look down on the lower (+middle) classes with contempt.

Consequent decades of domestic policy failure due to this high-level corruption, and the media's projection of those failures onto Europe, are what led to Brexit: Moreso than any real racism - an easy charge that unjustly deflected the elite's brief flash of geopolitical shame onto 'gammons'.

The now tragic UK could have chosen to become a progressive beacon of academic excellence in Europe had it not been for greed of a few (sale of ARM as another bellwether, anyone?).

Ever thus, I suppose.