Cambridge: 'We don't talk politics. The cruel thing is it doesn't affect us'

The longer you spend with the entrepreneurs behind the video game industry cluster in Cambridge, the more the forthcoming general election begins to seem a trifling, parochial concern. Compared with the momentous significance of the vote to leave the EU, next month's election barely registers for people such as Mark Gerhard, CEO of Playfusion, a video game company (pictured above) employing 58 people, of whom about 60% are from the EU. Almost all of us are disengaged from it. The cruel thing is that it doesn't affect us; if it goes really bad we can change our situation, we can solve it," he says. For people working in Cambridge's science parks, part of the hi-tech, global knowledge economy, the fallout from the Brexit vote is still the key political issue. Cambridge voted 74% to remain, and the shock of seeing things not go their way remains palpable. Bosses and senior employees in this tech cluster are highly educated and relatively well-off, and have many choices about where they base themselves. For the moment, this is Cambridge, but many are watching and waiting, contemplating their next steps, ready to leave the country should things turn unfavourable. In the months after the Brexit vote, Gerhard (who is originally from South Africa, but has lived here for 19 years and now has citizenship) was so dismayed to feel, as an immigrant, like he no longer belonged, that he contemplated moving to America. The election of Trump put paid to that idea, he says, but he is clear that should Brexit-related developments make it harder for his company to thrive in the UK, he will relocate. "It's not a threat; the reality is that for highly skilled individuals, the world is borderless.