The UK looks set for a recession and a longer battle with inflation than many of its neighbours. This is why.
Immediately after the referendum, sterling depreciated. This brought forward the impact on household incomes of what would otherwise be a slow burn change for the UK economy.
A conspiracy of silence over Brexit
22/06/2022
ix years after the EU referendum, the United Kingdom is being forced to confront an inconvenient truth: Brexit is a process, not an event. It is emphatically not done. Only now are the consequences of the “oven-ready deal” of which Boris Johnson boasted becoming clear.
With a potential trade war looming, Conservatives are stuck in an ever-more destructive disagreement over what Britain should look like outside the EU.
Now that many advanced economies have recovered and are close to – or above – their pre-pandemic level of output, we can compare Britain’s economic performance to its peers. The results are troubling.
Brexit Chickens Come Home to Roost
07/06/2022
While the picture’s hardly pretty and certainly not what advocates of Brexit envisioned, none of it surprises economists. As a former Bank of England official observed: “You run a trade war against yourself, bad things happen.”
Political distance from Brussels has been achieved. This is not up for question. However, economically speaking, there is vast room for improvement. The OBR calculates, in its current form, that Brexit is reducing our GDP by four per cent. This compares to around 1.5 per cent caused by Covid.
The consequences of leaving have long been clouded, including by the impact of Covid. Now the data is firming up—and it’s not good news.
EU countries have, on the whole, absorbed the shock of Brexit. But in Britain, trade is down – and prices are up.
Fishing rows notwithstanding, much of Europe looks on at the UK’s plight with astonishment – and even, still, sympathy.
The UK is heading for a decade of Italy-style decline thanks to the 'long-lasting' hit from Brexit
18/05/2021
Britain's economy is on course to deteriorate to the level of deeply-struggling Italy over the next decade if it is unable to overcome the hit taken by challenges, including Brexit, according to a new report.
It was Boris Johnson’s choice to prioritise “sovereignty” over the economy – and Britain is already paying the price.
Great Brexit Con Job
13/04/2021
Get Brexit Done’ has unravelled in a spectacular fashion; a significant knock to the economy, removal of rights and freedoms, more red tape for business and – the most heart-breaking of all – trouble has returned to Northern Ireland. The obvious answer to this foreseeable problem is for the UK to be part of the single market and customs union.
But so far, it’s not looking good: a hit to trade of this size entails big structural changes to the British economy, with capital and workers being shifted between sectors of the economy, businesses going bust, and higher prices for imports eroding living standards.
Every negative consequence of Brexit for the UK and the clear advantage for the EU is alerting the British public to the realities of Boris Johnson’s deal. As investment slows and jobs go elsewhere there will only be one person to blame – Boris Johnson.
Brexit has been an unmitigated disaster for the economy of Britain. Of course, the people responsible for it, won’t tell the truth or admit they were wrong.
When the bell tolls at eleven o’clock tonight, ringing out Britain’s membership of the EU, an entire phase of British history will come to a close. For nearly half a century – from 1973 to 2020 – perhaps the single most important fact about British history was its membership of the European Union (or ‘Community’, until 1993).
Is Britain committing commercial suicide?
27/02/2020
A 19th Century trade agenda will decimate the most productive parts of the 21st Century economy.
From the outside, nothing much has changed yet. From the inside, however, the UK has undergone a radical and at times ugly transformation. The June 2016 referendum has helped set off a chain of events that has impacted many aspects of life in the country.
The U.K. stock market is increasingly telling us Brexit is dead. This possibility in the almost unfathomable Brexit crisis has become totally feasible.
Regardless of a deal or no-deal Brexit, the current political uncertainties are challenging the UK's position as the premier location for resolving disputes. Commercial courts have already opened in Paris and Amsterdam, with proceedings conducted entirely in English and expressly aimed at competing with the UK.
From his booklet, ‘Beyond Brexit: Liberal Politics for the Age of Identity’, Liberal Democrat leader Vince Cable explores how the UK can prosper socially and financially in the 2020s.
Talks between Tories and Labour have collapsed and the focus at Westminster remains inward. / It hasn’t gone away, you know. Brexit has been on a bit of a media break over the last month or two since EU leaders agreed to extend the UK’s departure until October 30th, while leaving the option open of an earlier date.
In Birmingham, the ‘city of a thousand trades’, Brexit is endangering a modern-day renaissance
01/04/2019
England’s second most populous city was revived by EU money but voted to leave the bloc, in a pattern that has become all too familiar, says Patrick Cockburn.