Yes I remember when UK regulator blocked Microsoft from buying Activision there were posts on r/Microsoft regarding their ability to send update to brick all Windows installs in UK and delete all Azure data of UK companies, how UK was a small insignificant market compared to BRICs so it wouldn't hurt MSFT stock price.
Given JD Vance obviously hates UK/EU way more than Trump, and he may be next US president, he may in fact threaten Microsoft to do it against UK and EU.
But only 56% in a poll? Is that enough for another referendum and guarantee rejoin? EU politicians have made it clear, ALL UK opt-outs will be gone if UK rejoins, whether it is UK opt-out regarding budget (like paying billions less in annual EU fees like UK did before), to special fishing rights pre-Brexit, to forced to adopt Euro currency and drop Pound sterling.
Rejoining is seen as politically too risky in the short term. As you observe, the UK would not get back its privileged position, there are probably some bargains to be struck but a track to the Euro currency is almost certainly mandatory and that'd be unpopular because people really like our banknotes for some reason and the Euro deliberately just looks like play money, the illustrations deliberately don't show real structures to avoid associations with the nations where those things were built.
But while "Leaving was a bad idea" isn't enough to seriously push for actual re-entry to the EU it's certainly a good sign for the EU and for the Euro. The EU is a massive bureaucracy, and I think we underestimated how much "a massive bureaucracy" might be the thing we wanted in this role..
I don’t think you do recall correctly. Electrek has European EV sales at +33% in 2025 over 2024. It’s not possible for Norway to turn a negative in the rest of Europe into an overall positive. https://electrek.co/2025/12/11/global-ev-sales-jump-21-in-20...
> The proposed Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Bill emphasised the non-justiciability of the revived prerogative powers, prevented courts from making certain rulings in relation to a Government's power to dissolve Parliament. It received royal assent over two years later, on 24 March 2022.
As some have said before, it effectively means in future the Supreme Court can't undo or interfere with prorogation like what Boris Johnson did in 2019. The Labour party have said they won't cancel this law, so Kier Starmer can now do same as Boris and courts can't stop him.
"Investment" here seems to be operations and personnel, resulting in taxes going to the UK government.
They aren't making $630 billion per year in money off of those companies, but the operating income means they're getting taxes on that $630 billion (income tax from company and employees, VAT for purchases, etc.) and the personnel working in the UK are probably spending most of that money in the UK (velocity of money theory comes into play here).
The resulting economic benefit for the UK government is enough that they'd notice the drop if all that started to transition away.
The UK government is currently gas lighting the public into ignoring 60k+ in quarterly job losses and is historically unpopular. Despite that it is railroading orwellian attacks against rights and freedoms of the citizenry, all of which without a mandate. This is a kamikaze government of austerity-obsessed foreign agent traitors. The only thing they would be upset about in your scenario is about the inconvenience it would cause those trillion dollar American companies.
I like that resource, but it's missing an important one: github-markdown-css[1]. Given that most devs these days read a lot of Github markdown, it seems like a reasonable starting place for a css system.
> Already in 2012, Wanderwitz had unsuccessfully requested to inspect the gold holdings as part of an effort to pressure the bank to either take a more active role as a custodian, or to repatriate it to Germany.
Well that is worrying, what was he unsuccessful?
Surely that is going to be big world drama if it turns out Germany's gold is missing in New York?
> Today, over half of the Bundesbank’s reserves are stored on its premises in Frankfurt. Outside the U.S., the remaining 13 percent is held at the Bank of England.
I see Germany not asking for gold in London to be returned, I guess because required for trade in currency?
Given JD Vance obviously hates UK/EU way more than Trump, and he may be next US president, he may in fact threaten Microsoft to do it against UK and EU.
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