Brexit Hit to UK Economy Double Official Estimate, Study Finds
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Brexit was a mistake, but there is no way back to the privileged position we once held in the EU, and so anyone who still wants to talk about it is just a pointless shit-stirrer.
Talk about Brexit you mean? I think it's important to point out if it was a bad decision caused by deception, even more so if that was driven by illegal foreign influence. One can learn and perhaps something similar won't happen again, be it in UK or elsewhere. Brexit bombing already had a positive effect on other countries where this topic went from prime serious discussion to something only Russian parrots keep bringing up.
Not only that but the French helped the UK keep migrants out of the island (migrants were a hot topic at the time), which meant that good relations with the French, and by extension the EU actually helped.
The irony is the group that is "I don't like foreigners" still got them post Brexit, but they didn't come from Europe this time.
This is one thing I don't get about the Brexit framing (at the time and now).
It was just under 52-48.
With some key constituencies voting remain (Scotland and Northern Ireland).
In a normal country, that should be 'There does not seem to be an obvious national consensus', not 'Leave won a mandate!'
But when people cried foul about this move in 1973, Labour agreed to hold a referendum on leaving it again, which was held in 1975 and won by Remain. Unfortunately, the way they won was by misleading the public. They claimed the European Economic Community (as it was known at the time) was purely about building a free trade zone, with no political unification goals. Official leaflets sent to households said no federal "United States of Europe" was intended. The Leave campaign pointed out that it wasn't true and the EEC wanted to take over political power in Europe.
The Leave campaign were honest. The EEC later rebranded to the EU, and took over many powers that had nothing to do with free trade. This is one reason why a common comment heard from older people back in 2016 was "I voted Remain in 1975 and I'm voting Leave now, for the same reasons".
Regardless of the legitimacy of your other arguments this is a silly thing to say.
Besides the lies and misinformation. Boris was driven purely by his political ambitions and saw Brexit as a great opportunity to take over the Conservative party. That’s it.
Also legally binding referendums are not a thing in the UK. They aren’t a requirement for anything and the parliament has the right to do whatever it wants. Of course it would be a political suicide to ignore the outcome when you agreed to hold one.
Of course tying it to turnout would have been a sensical idea (i.e. requiring that at least 50% of registered voters would vote for leave for it to be binding)
sure, I don't expect the UK to apply for membership tomorrow, but (unless either the EU or the UK disappears completely) both parties would gain from deeper integration
Reminds me of my grandma trying to justify having a coke with every meal "to aid digestion". Just have your coke, it's fine, but own it.
Look at gdp numbers or other economic stats. British voters aren't worse off because of brexit. They're told they are and probably some of them believe it, but it's not true, you can see that in the data.
Anyway during the campaign Remain politicians said there would be economic impact. Leave said it won't be as bad as is claimed (they were right), but even if there is an impact it's worth it to regain control over other things. That was their argument. In a vote with 30 million+ voters you can find people who will say anything, but there was no way anyone could miss that message.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/nov/21/nathan-gill...
But it seems like the UK lost their political will to drop the hammer on regulation after Brexit, and they actually kept most of those legacy EU laws and only nixed a few.
UK experts: why was that? What made them lose their will?
It seemed to me once you were in for a penny, you were in for a pound and you had to go all the way to realize the benefits.
Now you just have a situation with even more regulatory complexity due to differences between the UK/EU, but the UK got none of the benefits. They’ve fallen between two stools.
Not to mention the NI question.
Physical reality bites as well: you can deregulate fish https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-fishin... , but that doesn't solve the underlying environmental issues and at best allows fishermen to collapse stocks sooner.
If they did get rid of the regulations they wouldn’t be able to trade with their largest trading partner anymore, whereas the trading partner would have over a 100 alternative countries they could replace the UK with.
Getting rid of well defined EU regulations would then additionally require passing tons of regulations through a complicated political process.
It would require retraining existing bureaucrats and hiring new bureaucrats.
It would require rewriting tons of software.
It would require exposing themselves to new loopholes because so many regulations and laws they weren’t getting rid of interacted and depended on EU regulations in ways that would not be clear before getting rid of them.
Negotiations between the EU and the UK paralyzed the UK political sector for half a decade.
Getting rid of decades of EU regulations (which the UK was the biggest driver of along with France and Germany, and held a veto power on every single one), would tie up the Uk Leadership in at least a decade of political bickering and inaction.
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It's down what? 15/20% from pre-brexit? I really wonder how people like Nigel Farage sleep at night. Just fine I suppose, but I really do wonder how.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/eu-referendum...
It's the same as the Ruble 11 years ago. Intentionally damage your own country to personally profit from short-selling the currency (or bonds, etc.). Countries are just imaginary social constructs after all, so who cares?
These people have no morals or ethics. They are psychopaths that only care for themselves. Even if it comes at devastating costs for others.
Brexit was a complete success, for Nigel Farage. The last thing I heard is that his party leads the polls in the UK.
In my country the spokesperson of the far-right party (AfD) was caught saying: "The worse things get for Germany, the better it is for the AfD". That's their mindset.
It's also why they are typically comically incompetent at actually managing a country.
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.KD?locat...
By a better metric I mean something that would even more accurately capture quality of life, healthcare outcomes, social ties, productivity within the home or family that isn’t tied to an income from an employer, etc.
One thing from the Brexit debate that people forget is that both Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage said they favour allowing skilled immigration.
At the time I remember seeing a meme of Captain Cook's ship off the coast of Australia with 'Stop the Boats' stamped beneath it to highlight the hypocrisy.
in other words, its a huge positive impact. unfortunately for the delivery driver, well, hes basically an indentured servant... i have no idea how these guys survive. especially now in 0 degree weather.
i recently started tipping them in the hopes that they don't dekulakize me in some future bolshevik overhaul (that they would be entirely justified to!)
Immigrants from richer western nations are net contributors to budget while those from poor countries are on average a drain. Uk locals land somewhere in between.
Brexit lead to more immigrants from poor countries but I doubt it moves the needle overall
The big change has been that it has shifted the balance from unskilled to skilled immigration. Generally you need money or skills to get a UK residence visa. Brexit removed a huge exemption to that for people from the EU.
Is that really what you got from my post? A brain dead apples and orange comparison?
My comment was in aggregate by origin regardless of profession or skill…
It makes no sense to compare the aggregates in countries of origin rather than in the immigrant populations.
Non EU immigrants tended to be higher skilled or well off because that is the only way they could get a visa. Unskilled immigrants could come in freely if they were from the EU and many did.
Therefore your claim that the EU immigrants contributed more to the economy than the non-EU immigrants who replaced them is false if you assume skilled immigrants make a grater contribution.
I suggest looking at the numbers instead of guessing (incorrectly). I’ll save you some time - it’s on page 4. see also page 57 - comparison to other studies finding the same.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5bfd2209e5274...
It includes students. They clearly benefit the country by spending lots of money but they do not have income of their own (usually funded by parents) so pay little tax - but the subsidise universities by paying high fees, and inject money into the economy from living expenses on top of that. Fees alone can be many tens of thousands of pounds a year for a STEM subject at a good university (IIRC computer science at Oxford is £60k/year). The definition of overseas students also includes many British citizens, even some of those who have been back long enough to pay UK fees.
It excludes visa fees, NHS charge etc.
A lot of the revenue contribution is estimated.
It says non-EEA immigrants make a much larger contribution then UK natives.
The big expense for non-EEA immigrants is educational expenses because they have children. If those children remain in the UK as adults that is an investment and benefits the country in the long term.
That reflects a fundamental flaw, in that it only looks at direct effects for revenue, not the total economic effect. A skilled worker is of far more value to the economy than just their taxes.
On the other hand they do include "public good" as a cost.
It looks very much like a consultancy company telling the client what they wanted to hear. It was commissioned when Theresa May, who was pro-EU and anti-non-EU-immigrant, was Prime Minister.
How much credence do you give it? I'm not an economist, and my general approach to any government's publications (especially in economics) is one of scepticism. Especially if it aligns with the party line (published in 2018, under May, who was very strongly anti-immigration).
Edit: this isn't made by the government but by a university, so scepticism is lessened slightly.
See my other comment for specific criticisms: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46013937
Boris said it himself in an interview: the treasury pushed for what has become known as the "Boriswave" because of inflationary wage pressures
https://youtu.be/WlR1JSV45X4?t=1410
I think that interview is actually historically notable: the first example of a western leader saying that immigration was deliberately increased to push down wages
Like, you guys have the Farage party leading in polls right now. I don't think any move in the direction of rejoining is realistic with the possibility of his party ruling the UK in a few years.
The real benefit from Brexit was felt outside of the UK. Although it was a shame to lose such an important country, the results were so disastrous for the UK that any *exit became extremely unpopular in other EU countries. Even far right parties in other EU countries had to completely scrape or severely tone down any rhetoric to leave the EU. Nowadays their goals are more to weaken the EU from within (which is still bad, but better than having those absolute retards campaigning to leave).
Probably less of a minefield than it is perceived as, a huge chunk of the "leave"-voters are dead now.
The main negative impact seems to be trade but the UK already has free trade agreements post-Brexit with the EU. Most of the remaining differences in hurdles are paperwork, which seems like an opportunity for automation that should be almost trivial with AI. The US has successfully automated most compliance based hurdles in the last couple years from finance to law to contracting.
Looking at the positive impacts and lack of growth from those… also skill issue?
Not having to follow regulations from the EU is also a huge boon yet the UK seems to have taken no advantage of this. Which to me is especially concerning because for years we have been hearing that Europe is lagging behind in development because of over-regulation in fields like AI, yet when freed of those shackles the UK seems to be lagging just the same.
The other positive impact heavily touted was reduced net immigration. This >could< have had a short term positive impact (heavily debatable long term cutting off access to talent pools) yet they have almost 3x’ed the reduction in immigration from the EU with an increase in immigration from other sources. The effects of this are pretty palpable as the UK now has its own flavor of nationalist movement, has not seen wage increases in advanced sectors due to supply forces in their labor market, and universities are relying on overseas students to increase tuition revenue - training a labor force that will largely churn.
The last one I’ll hit is not having to follow EU laws. After Brexit, instead of taking advantage of legislative sovereignty, the UK temporarily codified all EU law to avoid disruption. Parliament has had ~5 years to review the laws but from what I can tell has made almost no progress (~10%) and extended the expiration because… they haven’t had time to read the other laws.
So overall while I’m no type of economic analyst it would seem the problems of Brexit are not actually Brexit, but almost all competency issues. If there’s British tech talent in this thread there’s probably a billion pound opportunity in just easily automating trade paperwork or helping UKG review the remaining EU laws.
The idea of growth through liberalization should have been subject to the question "which rules, exactly" before getting to the point of the referendum.
Sure it would have been better to do it before the referendum but it seems everyone on that side of the pond has been wallowing in grief for the better part of a decade which should have been more than enough time to remedy the issues. Moving _slower_ than regulation is… certainly a choice.
What do you mean by this, concretely? Or in other words, if we check back in 5 years, what would cause you to say 'yeah I was wrong, eu newfascism {doesn't exist || hasn't progressed as badly as I expected}'?
edit: to the downvoters, what do you object to here?? I'm trying to pin down the meaning of the parent comment, because without some kind of definition, a phrase like 'eu newfascism' is all heat and no light. My 'in other words...' framing was not based on the assumption that the parent commenter will be proven wrong; I'm just asking 'what would it take to falsify this?'
Let’s see how that work out.
Some of these people think this means they can influence the country more for their own gain; some think it protects them from people influencing the country unduly.
Either way, its hard to argue against brexit having given the UK has more on paper long term control, and its hard to argue against brexit being costly both theoretically and in practice, and its hard to argue that the UK wouldn't currently be better off in the EU. Its hard, but people are doing it.
It is also a matter of class identity. Being a remainer is a lot posher than being a leaver.
I live in EU, but I am not originally from Europe. I have a EU citizenship at this point though.
That said, I am staunchly pro EU, and would always vote for further integration. In truth, I even think that EU federalization would be a good idea.
I have no idea why immigrants of all people would have a nationalistic stance on this.
It is necessary. Having a common currency without a common budget has been a disaster.
> I have no idea why immigrants of all people would have a nationalistic stance on this.
How is it a nationalistic stance? You are preferring one identity over another - either way is just as nationalistic.
Immigrants from outside the EU do not like immigrants from the EU being given preference from their countries of origin, often places with strong historical links to Britain, where English is widely spoken, etc.
English first, European second. Indeed, the people of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland likely feel the same, and it’s unclear why that union should be considered worthwhile when a larger one is not.
> its hard to feel European if you are not of European origin.
All British-born people are of European origin. That is a simple geographic fact.
Lots of people are British born who are not of European ancestry. Unless you are defining "European origin" to mean "born in Europe" in which case your claim is tautologous. The other possibility is that you are defining "British born" to mean ethnically white British which does not really need any comment.
Even if it is not what you meant, European has strong implications of European ethnicity.
I would invert your question. Why do many people consider the larger union worthwhile but the smaller (and more workable one) not worthwhile? The only areas outside London that had a majority remain vote, are those where the vote was swung by Scottish or Welsh nationalists. In general the supporters of one union oppose the other.
Your statistics are also trivially falsifiable by simple counterexample - the town I lived and voted in during the 2016 EU membership referendum is not London, or the London area, is in England, and voted remain by 57.9% to 42.1%. The major city next door did so by an even more overwhelming margin: 61.7% to 38.3%. Not too many Welsh or Scottish nationalists in either…
So you’ll no doubt forgive me for not taking you too seriously when you spout horse shit dressed up as thoughtfulness.
By the way, I do indeed consider anyone born within the borders of the geographic boundary of Europe to be European, just like anyone born in the United States of America is American. The only arguments against such ideas are dog whistles (or let’s face it, full on soccer whistles at this point).
Maybe over half would now vote to remain, but most pundits thought this would be the case before 2015, so who can say for certain (e.g. Nigel Farage is more popular than ever and he is Mr Brexit).
It is way too early to judge the success or failure of leaving the EU, and part of it will be down to chance. There are also intangible reasons (e.g. feeling of national identity, distaste for bureaucracy) people voted leave and, while I don't think they make up for the loss, I don't think they should be poo-pooed.
I personally would have liked to remain in the EU but I don't think the EU is obviously good, or leaving the EU is obviously a terrible idea.
Sophistry incarnate, that bunch.
-Commission’s monopoly on legislative initiative
-Technocratic “fast-tracking” of democracy via trilogues. -cult-like mentality around ever-closer union making devolution unthinkable within the commission.
-Commission’s direct funding of media and its proposed expansion of the Media+ budget give it the ability to spend money directly promoting the narratives and priorities it wants to see amplified.
-Legislative attrition; passing legislation not through genuine consensus, but through persistence — re-proposing it until the Commission secures its preferred outcome. As we’re currently seeing with the chat control proposal
The way the EU has behaved in defense negotiations has further solidified my thoughts on this. Tying fishing rights to defense cooperation[0] then after the UK made concessions demanding billions with no say on how the money will be spent.
[0] https://www.politico.eu/article/uk-eu-defense-pact-really-do...
From an economic point of view, it will probably never make sense because the UK was shielded from most of the EU most stupid decisions through carve out. They were out the disastrous currency union. They were not fully in Schengen. They had a lot of leeway with regulations.
Coming back would probably be a mistake however. They would most likely be forced to join the eurozone.
I think it's a real argument personnally and the heart of the issue. That was the main question of the Brexit referundum: do you want to be a part of this pan-European union of people and surrender some of your country power to this union?
You can argue that the subsequent trade agreement and the alignment that followed have reintroduced some of the same constraints, which is true, but practically and conceptually speaking it is a very different kind of situation.
Compare how the UK has done since 2016 compared to either the government forecasts of what would happen in the event of a Brexit vote, or to the other big western European economies and you can see the problems. The fact that one estimate is double another gives you a clue to how uncertain these estimates are.
Which is horseshit, obviously.
Brexit was necessary for those ideas to be implemented. An individual's view on whether those ideas are good or not will correlate with their continued support of Brexit.
Now i can't accuse the Brexit negotiators of acting with competence. Neither can i claim that it has brought any short to medium term benefits. But the situation wasn't great either way. The referendum was a choice between a bad option (remaining) and an even worse option.
EU Members of Parliament for the UK were elected via proportional representation, whereas Westminster MPs are elected via the comparatively undemocratic first-past-the-post system, where a party with 14% of the national vote gets just 1% of the seats in Parliament (Reform UK, GE 2024), and one with 34% of the vote gets 63% of the seats (Labour, GE2024).
The constitution was rejected by referundum by at least two members states before being plainly reintroduced as a treaty and summarily imposed. Parliament has no power of initiative. Commissionners appointments are frankly opaque when it comes to how portfolios are handed out.
Then, you have the way the eurozone is structure. It's literally a prison. The treaties don't provide an orderly way out of and TARGET 2 ensures that leaving means complete economic chaos so countries are basically stuck. This situation has been used in the past to justify bludgeoning a population into obedience and impose extrem austerity to protect rich members unwise creditors.
Brexit was only possible because of the pound sterling and that's not a possibility the union extends to new comers.
Elaborate how exactly it is undemocratic.
I always ask imbeciles that repeat this bullshit, and they can never articulate this point. They either never reply or change the subject.
Typically they gesture at the EU commission being unelected, but they ignore that the commissioners are nominated by each member state (and all member states are supposedly democracies. And I say supposedly because Hungary exists). The nominees then have to be approved by the EU parliament (which is elected).
Saying that EU is undemocratic is like saying that a country with a prime minister is undemocratic because he was not directly voted for. Which is not an argument that can be taken seriously.
And I say this as someone that dislikes that EU commission is appointed by the member states government. The problem with this is that it mixes internal politics with EU politics - for example, in national elections I may vote for parties based on national issues, but I would vote for a different party in an explicit EU election.
Step two was funding greens to reduce Nuclear and increase dependence on his energy products so he can fund his military and oligarchs. By spreading extreme left policies that seem unreasonable to normal people he opens the door to install his own populists at the helm of any country over time.
Step three is war to leave his permanent mark by re-expanding Russia and avoiding jail. God knows what else motivates him to do damage.
His apparatus works too well because social media is perfect for spreading fear. Humans evolved socially to protect themselves and the #1 thing they want to spread is things that others should be watching out for. Now the lions at the river are largely manufactured to keep the flock contained and obedient.