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To choose Brexit is to choose to lose, say writers


We are writers. We are your writers, the United Kingdom’s writers. We write the TV shows on UK screens and the books on UK shelves. We are part of the bubbling soup of the creative industries – along with games, film, theatre and the rest – which together are worth £10m an hour to this country. In fact, the UK publishes more books per head than any other nation on Earth, and millions of UK citizens believe they will one day join us and write the book they have inside them – and lots of them will.

That is possible in part because books printed here, in English, can be sold into Europe as easily as at home. Exports account for 60% of UK publishing revenues, and 36% of physical book exports go to Europe, and that is only the most straightforward concern about what will happen. It’s fashionable among politicians to sneer at the creative industries, but our work is work just like anyone else’s, and like anyone else’s it can only happen if we get paid. Without any idea of what Brexit might look like, it’s impossible to know exactly what we might lose. A tenth? A fifth? A third of what we live on? We’ll have to make compromises. Should we ditch part of the beginning, the middle, or the end of the story? Would audiences prefer not to know whose fault it all is, how the crime was solved, or who’s still standing at the end?

In TV it’s even starker; rules on tax funding for production could mean we’re simply excluded from projects filming in Europe. And that’s already happening as companies – from the US and elsewhere, not just from the EU – prepare for Brexit. It’s not just writers. It’s whole crews: carpenters, props, sparks and riggers. It’s our globally renowned visual effects industry being thrown on the fire.

It seems to us that the same question is facing every industry and every person in the UK: what will you choose to lose? Because we used to hear about the advantages of Brexit. We used to hear about the bright future, the extra money, the opportunities. Now the advocates of Brexit just assure us that it won’t be as bad as the last world war.

What will we choose to lose from the NHS? Apart from one in 10 doctors and thousands of nurses? What will the north-east choose to lose? Apart from 10,000 jobs already. What will the British car industry choose to lose? Apart from Honda and Nissan and the other companies which have already gone. What will science choose to lose? Apart from funding, staff and investment? What will farming choose to lose? Apart from 97% of our export market for lamb, and this summer’s fruit crop.

We are the people who spend our lives making things that are not true seem believable, and we don’t think Brexit is even a good effort. In the elections for the European parliament, and the referendum which seems almost inevitable, we want to urge everyone to vote to stay in the EU – unless they know what they are choosing to lose, for themselves and everyone they know, and are happy with that. We choose a better environment, better healthcare, better food, more working protections, bigger markets, more jobs. We choose friendship and peace and better days. We choose Europe.
Nick Harkaway
Suw Charman-Anderson
Neil Gaiman
Laurie Penny
Warren Ellis
Emma Kennedy
John le Carré
Philip Pullman
Charles Arthur
Robert Harris
Dr Sue Black
Kieron Gillen
Joe Abercrombie
Samuel West
Prof Kate Williams
Sam Baker
Dr Helen Czerski
Nikesh Shukla
Dr Sunny Singh
Molly Flatt
Sarah Hilary
Irenosen Okojie
Tade Thompson
Ben Lyttleton
Paul Cornell
Andy Diggle
Max Porter
Sarah Pinborough
Rob Williams
Ed James
Paul Burston
Simon Spurrier
Al Ewing
Emma Newman
Tom Hunter
Adrian Tchaikovsky
Prof Adam Roberts
Robert Shearman
Adam Christopher
Prof David Andress
James Henry
Mike Carey
Jon Courtenay Grimwood
Gaia Vince
David Barnett
Alex Paknadel
James Smythe
Martyn Waites
Dr Una McCormack
Steve Mosby
Prof Roger Luckhurst
Chrissy Williams
Claire North
Dave Hutchinson
Kim Curran
Barbara Nadel
Julia Crouch
Juliet E McKenna
Den Patrick
Jill Dawson
Dan Watters
Sydney Moore
Sophia McDougall
Neil Broadfoot
Daragh Carville
Anne Charnock
Al Robertson
Lesley Thomson
Jaine Fenn
Dr Mark Blacklock
Jo Baker
E. J. Swift
Rhiannon Lassiter
David Gullen
Ian Whates
Ian Macleod
Laura Wade
Tricia Sullivan
Andrew Greig
James Oswald
Jane Rogers
Julian Simpson
Marina Lewycka
Sydney Padua
Annie Auerbach
Tom Pollock
Liz Fraser
Paul Johnston

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