Let us not pull punches here. UK science got hit the day after the Brexit vote and damage has continued, under the radar, for well over two years since that date. However, the new threat of a no-deal Brexit has added a more dramatic set of complicated factors that are ramping up some serious damage to UK science right now, whatever happens.

One week after the referendum result, we at Scientists for EU sent out a call for researchers to record their experiences of the immediate impact from the vote. Our reading and classification of more than 400 entries from those first few weeks after the vote, many confidential, suggested to us that overnight, the UK had become less attractive as a place to do science.

The first reason is cultural and the second is funding-related. The surge in xenophobia nationally instantly made many foreigners in the UK science base feel less welcome and uncertain about their future rights.

‘Brexit is like...’ The Top 20 Twitter analogies Show all 20 1 /20 ‘Brexit is like...’ The Top 20 Twitter analogies ‘Brexit is like...’ The Top 20 Twitter analogies The Beatles "Brexit is like Liverpool trashing all its links to The Beatles and spending all its time and energy building Esther McVey World." Shutterstock / terry bouch ‘Brexit is like...’ The Top 20 Twitter analogies The number seven "Trying to understand Brexit is like trying to figure out what colour the letter seven smells like." Shutterstock / jgl247 ‘Brexit is like...’ The Top 20 Twitter analogies Pilots "Brexit is like being in a plane hurtling towards the ground with the pilot and co-pilot arguing over who would crash it better." Shutterstock / View Apart ‘Brexit is like...’ The Top 20 Twitter analogies Operation "Brexit is like going to the doctor, being told you need an operation, agreeing to it, then finding out they are going to cut off your cock & sew it to your forhead... ...but refusing to get a 2nd opinion." Shutterstock / Dmytro Zinkevych ‘Brexit is like...’ The Top 20 Twitter analogies Wall "My mentions have taught me that Brexit is like Trump’s wall. For its devoted fans it has a symbolic value totally unrelated to its workability, its true cost or the glaring self-interest of its proposers, whereas non-believers see nothing but a deranged and costly vanity project." Shutterstock / Tony Craddock ‘Brexit is like...’ The Top 20 Twitter analogies Skydive "brexit is like a sitcom where at the start of the episode the main character tells a casual lie about being able to skydive to impress someone and now they're at the end of the episode in a plane about to jump" Shutterstock / Mauricio Graiki ‘Brexit is like...’ The Top 20 Twitter analogies Crumble "Brexit is like if Farage & Johnson said “May we make you an *amazing* apple crumble?” & then 18 months later handed you a leaking bag of maggots & offal. You shouldn’t have to eat it." Shutterstock / CKP1001 ‘Brexit is like...’ The Top 20 Twitter analogies Punch "‘Asking me to support Brexit is like asking me to punch my constituents in the face,’ said Anna Turley, the Labour MP for Redcar, which voted 66:34 to leave. ‘It doesn’t make it easier if you tell me my constituents want to be punched.’" Shutterstock / ZoneCreative ‘Brexit is like...’ The Top 20 Twitter analogies Fire "Watching this government deal with Brexit is like being locked outside your house while you can see people inside setting fire to the furniture as the law’s telling you you can’t go in and stop them." Shutterstock / Gorb Andrii ‘Brexit is like...’ The Top 20 Twitter analogies Villains "Brexit is like living in a superhero movie that has no heroes, just loads of incompetent villains fighting over who is more evil." Shutterstock / Aisyaqilumaranas ‘Brexit is like...’ The Top 20 Twitter analogies Book "Brexit is like a bad novel. You are so far into it you just want to skip to the end to see if it ended as badly as it had begun. (You throw the book at the wall when you realise it is the first book in a trilogy)." Shutterstock / Stokkete ‘Brexit is like...’ The Top 20 Twitter analogies Cricket "Watching Brexit is like trying to reverse engineer the rules of cricket by listening to the radio. I have absolutely no idea what is going on." Shutterstock / ChrisVanLennepPhoto ‘Brexit is like...’ The Top 20 Twitter analogies Car "Brexit is like the UK took a motorway exit, then found the road turning into a rutted grassy track, and now the car's stuck in a muddy field, there's no help in sight, it's getting dark, everyone's shouting at the driver, and the passengers are beginning to worry about food." Shutterstock / Kolbakova Olga ‘Brexit is like...’ The Top 20 Twitter analogies Cable "Watching Brexit is like watching someone try and plug a coaxial aerial cable into a HDMI port. There is a lot of anger, a lot of swearing, and a lot of remarks about how this used to work before." Shutterstock / Elnur ‘Brexit is like...’ The Top 20 Twitter analogies Windows "#Brexit is like going back to Windows 3.1" ‘Brexit is like...’ The Top 20 Twitter analogies Liars "I'm sure most people remember a kid at school who just lied constantly? Who refused to back down, however outlandish the lie, and however it was disproven? Brexit is like all of those kids from every school have got together, and are now running the country." Shutterstock / chairavee laphom ‘Brexit is like...’ The Top 20 Twitter analogies Donors "Trying to extricate ourselves from the EU, and Brexit, is like a multiple transplant patient attempting to give all the donated organs back." Shutterstock / Luuuusa ‘Brexit is like...’ The Top 20 Twitter analogies Electricity "Paying my taxes to pay for Brexit is like asking a guy on death row if he has any change to put in the meter for the electric chair." Shutterstock / Fer Gregory ‘Brexit is like...’ The Top 20 Twitter analogies Bandersnatch "Brexit is like watching Bandersnatch with your bae where bae is 70,000 Conservative party members hogging the PlayStation controller & choosing the most WTF option every time.! Shutterstock / George Dolgikh ‘Brexit is like...’ The Top 20 Twitter analogies Constipation "Brexit is like the shit that never comes. Total constitutional constipation. Ironically Brexit also sounds like a constipation relief medicine." Shutterstock / sasha2109

The uncertainty of the UK relationship with the EU science programme was also a strong factor in the UK’s decreased attractiveness to prospective talent. There were many cases of non-Brits turning down jobs or not applying.

Theresa May’s withdrawal agreement seemed to fix the access to science funds problem, if not yet the rights of EU citizens to stay. The deal proposed to continue paying into EU programmes, including the science programme, until 2020, thereby securing full access until the end of that year.

However, no sooner had it been signed than David Davis began making noises that the withdrawal agreement and associated “divorce bill” may be reneged. This threat of a no deal was exacerbated when Davis left after the Chequers debacle and Dominic Raab took his place, echoing the threat as soon as he came in.

On 23 August, the government released its first batch of technical notes on what no-deal Brexit would mean for UK science.

This stated explicitly that, as a third country, UK institutions would no longer be eligible for three Horizon 2020 funding lines: European Research Council (ERC) grants, Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions, and SME instrument grants for small innovative businesses.

We immediately calculated that these three lines represent 45 per cent of the UK’s receipts to date from Horizon 2020. Given that the UK is currently winning €1.3bn each year from Horizon 2020, then a no-deal Brexit would cost UK research over £520m a year in lost opportunity to access these very high-value grants.

Could we not just replace these grants with UK money and equivalents? We could try – but it would take years to build up to the prestige and reach of the ERC grants in particular. The European Research Council grants are awarded by a scientific committee of Europe’s top scientists.

Recipients have won six Nobel prizes, four Fields medals and five Wolf prizes. One in 14 publications from ERC projects rank in the top 1 per cent most cited worldwide. The generous awards for blue-skies research are typically €1m-€2m for talent from anywhere in the world to undertake pioneering research in EU and associated countries, with enough money to build a top team.

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Even if the UK government was to compensate our research community for the financial loss of ERC grants, it would take far longer than the few months left until Brexit day to create a brand that top global scientists wanted. When the Swiss were cut out of Horizon 2020, they tried to create national stop-gap versions of the ERC – without much success.

In addition to the concerns around access to talent and access to the science programme, there are other huge issues now emerging fast. A no-deal Brexit would bring disruption in supplies. Labs are already stockpiling. A further fall in the pound would push equipment costs up. That blows budgets. We have already lost the European Medicines Agency, but now the no-deal uncertainty means large research and development companies are looking to leave too.

And finally, a no-deal Brexit would undoubtedly cause a hostile climate between the UK and EU, which would strongly serve to repel European and global scientists from our shores.

Given that the future of the UK’s economy should lie in jobs from science, innovation and technology, Brexit is clearly undermining the very fabric of our future wealth, before we even start the thing.

Dr Mike Galsworthy is programme director of Scientists for EU