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Would Not Be So Good for UK Science

Two Nobel laureates and other researchers say a no-deal Brexit would harm Britain's global reputation and injure science in the UK for years, the Guardian reports.

"Colleagues abroad think the UK has lost its senses," Paul Nurse, who won the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine and is the director of the Crick Institute, tells the Guardian. "The prime minister behaves like a clown and the world has noted that. Our reputation has plummeted."

The UK is currently set to withdraw from the European Union at the end of the month, a move Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said would occur "do or die." But researchers tell the Guardian that without a deal, science in the country would suffer, especially if the lack of a deal keeps the UK out of the €100 billion ($109 billion) Horizon Europe research program.

"Imagine a divorce that ends up in animosity," Manchester University's Andre Geim, a 2010 Nobel laureate in physics tells the Guardian. "You don't expect an invitation from your partner to join a business venture any time soon. That's the same for no-deal Brexit."