I posted this link on another thread but thought it deserved its own topic as this is so important.
The Services Sector accounts for a staggering 78% of the UK's GDP. Since manufacturing has all but disappeared, this what the UK is best at offering the world and we really are rather good at it! At the core is the financial sector, which would be seriously under threat if Brexit happens.
Swiss banks have been trying, and failing, for years to get direct access to the single market. The EU have refused to include the entire Services Sector in its agreements with Switzerland and others. This has hugely benefited the UK, because it means that Swiss banks need major operations in the EU, and most have chosen London, bringing jobs and tax revenues.
If Brexit happens, then both foreign and UK banks would have to move large parts of their operations across the Channel, probably mainly to Paris but also to Frankfurt and Berlin. We'd be extremely naive to think that France and Germany would give the UK preferential treatment to protect the London financial centre! Brexit would be a disaster for the City and this would affect the entire UK economy, not just rich City types.
This article by Hugo Dixon (a Remainer, so not unbiased but very well informed) explains the Swiss situation really well: Swiss Option?
The Swiss government has itself acknowledged the drawback: “The existing barriers to market access place Switzerland at an economic disadvantage… Swiss financial intermediaries can only expand their EU business by way of subsidiaries in the EU, which means that Switzerland loses out in terms of jobs, value creation and tax receipts.”
And
The idea that Switzerland doesn’t have to follow EU rules is also misleading. It doesn’t have to adopt the social legislation. But in general it does have to adopt the same or equivalent product regulations – and it gets no vote on what those rules are. There is also no dispute mechanism so, if it gets into a fight with the EU over whether its companies have been fairly treated, there’s nothing it can do. The Swiss government has commented that it is “generally necessary to adopt developments of relevant EU law” to keep regulation equivalent.
And:
Switzerland is also required to allow immigration from the EU. Economically, this benefits Switzerland just as it does Britain. But for those who want to stop EU immigration, the Swiss option isn’t a good one.
I strongly recommend everyone to read the entire article.
AIBU?
To think that we'd be mad to risk the UK's Financial Sector?
Ailicece · 22/06/2016 10:41
There have been similar threads actually with plenty of Brexiteers ? on 
Eccomics favours freedom, many believe exit would lead to problems, many believe it would perform better in a smaller swifter model able to respond as we need it too.
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/19/throw-off-the-eu-shackles-and-thriving-british-economy-will-do-e/
We are the world’s 5th biggest economy, the 8th biggest manufacturer; we speak the world’s international business language; we have the best contract law and one of the most trusted judicial systems in the world. We have the most creative and innovative financial services sector anywhere; we have three of the top universities in the world and, according to the World Bank, the most powerful capital city on earth.
When we vote to leave on June 23, our economy, already doing better than any other in the developed world, will experience a boost from the newfound freedom to set up tariff free trade with the 80 per cent of the world that is not in the Single Market!
Our friends in the EU will need, for the sake of their own jobs and businesses, to continue to trade tariff free with us. And of course there will be the “Independence Dividend” of £10 billion each year
London is not only as world bank has said the most powerful capital city on earth but its also one of the most FUN, cultural, exciting and wonderful cities on earth. I really cant see Banks luring workers to Frankfurt, sorry.
Being in the EU has held back our trading prospects. In the last 53 years, medium-sized Switzerland and Singapore, a city-state, have struck trade deals worth five times as much as the agreements the EU has pitifully managed
The EU, with 28 member states, struggles to agree terms of trade, with so many varying interests, yet prevents us from striking our own way in the world.
If anyone has ever been out with a large group, you will know how hard it can be to get anything done, " lets go to Joes bar" "no!!" " I want to go to Cats bar, the man I like may be there" " but I hate that bar, lets go here" then you get somewhere and you cant get in, back to square one, Going out in a small group is far far easier.
Yes, I agree with your brother. I freelance in a field that straddles creative/tech and I've already had my workload drop a lot, as the companies who normally need me are eyeing up making the London offices smaller and expanding in mainland Europe if we leave.
My old job is academia and everyone in my old department is also stressed about brexit. So I don't think going back to that is an option either. And whilst I have a passport for another EU country as well as Britain, I can't move for family reasons.
But, returning to the whole country rather just my work woes 
, yes, financial services are where we'll most lose out if we leave and I don't think most people understand the difference between our current situation and the oft mis-quoted Swiss.
Armageddon?
I really wish Remain voters woukd avoid this kind of stupid hyperbole.
Armageddon??
Words mean things.
There is already a manufacturing industry in the UK.
This is starting to seem more like you are pushing your own sectoral interests than making any kind of rational argument.
A reduced city of London and a weaker pound have been recommemded as ways out of our current weak ecomomy.
We should oursue those aims AND stay in the EU.
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The financial sector is not popular with the rest of society
.
People say things like we would be better off without them.
And whilst I can see that our over reliance on that sector has allowed a toxic environment to grow, if you're alone in the desert, you don't shoot your horse, even if you ducking hate that horse!
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