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Comment by pdimitar | Hacker News Reader

Can somebody from the UK confirm?

It's been a hugely divisive topic from what I've gathered in the last years.

Are things on average worse, or the same, or better?

I would say things are worse but it's difficult to disentangle it from the other major events like Covid and the war. Also worth pointing out that the UK's economic stagnation began well before Brexit and goes back to the 2008 crash: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FvPzCWYXwAEoIRu?format=jpg&name=....

As someone who supports Brexit, I always thought there would be greater costs in the short term but getting out of institutional structure of the EU would be beneficial long term, as long as we take advantage of the institutional freedom and try to get onto a different path as a country (investing heavily in science and technology, having a more rational approach to regulation, having an immigration system that attracts great talent while also controlling the borders and thus making the whole thing less toxic).

I haven't overall changed my view as the EU still seems to be on a very bad path as I see it, I can't say I'm hugely optimistic about the UK either though. There are glimmers of hope like the new ARIA institution for blue sky science, but the main political parties are a pretty depressing spectacle.

> I would say things are worse but it's difficult to disentangle it from the other major events like [the pandemic] and the war.

It's just surreal to me that brexit is just in the top 3 events in the past few years.

The big mistake was that the uk went with austerity in 2008.

The trouble is the UK electorate has no appetite for the kind of changes that would make Brexit a success. Instead we are going to slowly creep back in over the coming decades. Having such a large trading block right on our doorstep makes that inevitable.

In Australia no-one ever discussing anything about current propsperity in the context of "disentangling it from the other major events like Covid and the war".

Sure those are things, but we are not trying to make sense of current affairs through that lens as a major factor.

As someone who has spent a significant amount of time in the UK and the Czech Republic (an EU country) since Brexit, both places are worse off now, but the Czech Republic is significantly more worse off than Britain. I have plenty of anecdotal evidence, but it suffices to look at inflation statistics, with Czechia at 15.1% and the UK at 9.07% for 2022. I haven't noticed any empty shelves, except for eggs, which were caused free-range chicken quarantine (according to a store worker). Maybe it's a coincidence, but as far as I can tell, this crisis has nothing to do with Brexit.

Interesting. So we can guess that this article (and others like it) observes local isolated phenomena?

The article talks about store shortages and becoming a poorer country. I haven't been affected by the shortages so I presume they aren't as significant as the media present them. As for getting poorer, it seems to be a Europe-wide problem - hardly related to Brexit.

Compairing UK and the Czech Republic is like apples and oranges. A comparison with France or Germany would be more appropriate (but this way Brexit looks really bad).

Would you elaborate on your comparison with Germany? OECD GDP, CPI inflation, and inflation forecast figures seem to contradict your argument.

Things are a lot worse but it's difficult to disentangle.

The coronavirus pandemic was an absolute shitshow of wasted money. A ton of locals left the workforce as well. We're paying for that on top of Brexit.

Corona, plus the war. Really, really hard to disentangle.

Yes, that too.

So we basically have issues with imports, less foreign labour, a ridiculous tax burden and an energy crisis. At the same time.

I guess one way to compare would be how did the rest of EU do vs Britain? If everyone did poorly Brexit had no measurable effect.

That assumes Brexit had no affect on the rest of the EU. Seems unlikely to me.

How do people feel about Brexit three years on? - BBC Newsnight

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KloM9uVcIOY

Can’t think of anything that’s better

Yikes, that seriously sounds alarming. Sorry to hear.

Worse, much worse - but it's still unclear how much of that can be chalked up to Brexit vs. the war vs. corona.

It was hugely divisive between 2016-2019 but once it dropped off the media's radar people mostly stopped talking about it (before corona).

So it's no longer divisive, as in, there's now a public consensus whether Brexit was good or bad?

Or it's no longer divisive, as in, nobody has a clue anymore because too many things happened and nobody can follow the trail of economic hardship?

It's less about the trail of economic hardship and more about the media losing interest in using it to divide people.

Therefore people stopped arguing over it.

Comparison to European economies (which suffered through the same coronavirus pandemic and the same, if not worse, energy crisis) might bring some clarity.

I dont doubt it was an economic net negative.

On the whole I think the war has been far worse though.

Those who are anti-Brexit are loving it as they are blaming EVERYTHING caused by Ukraine war and gas prices inflation on Brexit. They are just as much the liars as the Brexitiers they accuse of being so. Some of them will in fact will be reading this and being in glee and loving how much Putin's invasion has helped them.

What do you think the real reason is?

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