Hacker News Reader

Comment by rm445 | Hacker News Reader

The EU has mildly outperformed the UK in overall economic growth by perhaps 1 percentage point over the last 5-6 years, i.e. ~7% vs ~6%. While of course both massively underperformed the USA.

It's hard to avoid concluding that the actual effects of Brexit have been smaller than this kind of analysis suggests, and while we squabble about such things our countries are missing opportunity after opportunity.

View on HN

Brexit harming the growth of both UK and EU is another perfectly valid interpretation of those numbers.

I'm sure there's a little truth to both, and noise from all kinds of other factors.

It's not all noise. Being able to live, work, or study anywhere in the Schengen zone has tremendous value. But it doesn't show up in GDP numbers. Brexit harmed the young people of UK, and they hate it.

Regarding the UK specifically, very few people chose to study in the EU when they could while many in the EU wanted to study in the UK. British unis are a huge asset to the country that also brings a lot of money from foreign students. Same for young people wanting to come work in UK/London.

Frankly, I think the "harm" done to young British people is vastly overblown and more symbolic than actual.

Young people voted against Brexit by 2 to 1. If anything they are more opposed now. Perhaps they know if they've been harmed or not.

They voted 'remain' but, as said, what they feel and what the facts are are not the same thing. They might be pissed off that they cannot just go study in the EU anymore but the fact is that they didn't when they could...

Even today, they can obviously register to study abroad, just need a visa like everyone else, and considering the English unis' tuition fees they would actually save money by doing so but hardly anyone does because of the language barrier (same as when the UK was in the EU).

So IMHO it is a case of FOMO.

It's the EU students who have lost out because they must now pay hefty tuition fees (like £35k+ a year) if they wish to study in British unis so most of them have given up. British unis don't really care because they are in high demand globally, anyway.

Your response amounts to: ignore what the people affected value, only pay attention to a cherry picked number. Even the number you cherry picked is only valued by people who resent students coming to the UK and think they ought to pay steep tuition fee fees, which is just weird. Who benefits? Certainly not the students who would otherwise gain an international perspective.

This is a very odd reply.

I have not cherry-picked anything and I think assessing what people value has to look at how they act and behave, not just at what they say.

Not many UK students choose to study in Europe (I suspect in large part because of the language barrier). That was true when the UK was in the EU and it is true now when doing so is not super hard and would save them money. So maybe they valued the idea of being able to 'just go study in Europe' but they didn't do it much... Hence, minimal actual harm.

> Even the number you cherry picked is only valued by people who resent students coming to the UK and think they ought to pay steep tuition fee fees, which is just weird

I have no idea how you got that idea from my previous comment...

It is difficult to discuss anything related to Brexit.

I don't know about that. Canada also tracked the UK more closely than the US and it was not involved in Brexit[1]. The US just did really well during this time.

[1] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?end=2024...

If you compare UK to its equivalent developed countries (France, Germany, Italy, etc. ), without including the developing EU economies of Eastern Europe, you get that the UK’s GDP growth has outperformed the rest since brexit happened.

Have you a source? Using IMF data for GDP per capita PPP, the UK's growth has underperformed that of France, Spain and Italy over the last 10 years. In 2016 the UK's per-capita GDP in international dollars exceeded that of France by approx. $1600, estimates for 2026 are showing France being ahead by about $1000.

Brexit happened in 2020. GDP/capita change since then:

* UK $40.8k -> $61.1k = +49.5%

* Germany $48.0k -> $65.3k = +36.2%

* France $39.2k -> $52.1k = +32.8%

* Italy $32.0k -> $46.5k = +45.5%

* Spain $27.2k -> $41.6k = +52.9%

Some effects of Brexit began right after the referendum (eg a business investment flattened since 2016).

2019–2020 are the worst years to start a comparison, because the UK uses a different accounting method to measure the government's contribution to GDP. So, COVID looks much worse in the UK and the recovery looks much better.

Business investment did not flatten after the referendum. Nothing happened after the referendum and the economy continued to grow, with unemployment falling to record lows.

Compare vs the prediction by guys like Portes, the author of the essay: "In the short term, we expect that a vote to leave would result in a significant economic downturn, with unemployment rising by up to 1.7 per cent"

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/002795011623600101

People like the author have no credibility. When they say things like, "Most serious estimates now suggest that UK GDP is several percentage points below where it would otherwise have been" they don't address the fact that "serious" people previously made many failed predictions. Like always in academia, continuous failure is not considered disqualifying for the job.

you're going to have to quote sources and explain the math.

Many of the UK's post-Brexit trade deals have been the previous EU one with a slight tweak. Even the much touted US beef deal was built on an EU scheme and was rather minimal at that. It's not surprising then that the EU and UK are similar. The lack of UK growth over the EU is a big indictment of Brexit from an economic perspective.

The UK has done alright and London has continued to do very well. Considering that there wasn't, and essentially still isn't, any plans on how to make the most (or anything...) of Brexit, that's telling, IMHO.

There is no making "the most" out of Brexit the same way there isn't a way to make "the most" out of sawing your own leg off. It was completely unforced self-mutilation. The fact they're still hobbling on is commendable, but it's still much worse than they would've been off otherwise.

You may call it self-harm, but I think we need to consider Britain's relatively pragmatic / less than enthusiastic membership of the EU. For a start, Britain has a completely different legal system to the rest of Europe (common law vs. civil law). That was bound to create tensions.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Legal_systems_in_Eur...

I don't see how you can make such a binary claim - UK vs "the rest of Europe". Your map shows 6 broad categories of legal systems in use across Europe. Even if you put the 5 non-common law systems into one bucket, it still wouldn't make the UK unique as Ireland operates under common law.

You are right, it is not binary in the way I wrote. I guess one difference between UK and Ireland is absence of a written constitution?

That isn't true, and a ridiculous take. There are pros and cons to both being in and out of the EU.

Well here is how it looks from my perspective:

- At previous gig relocation of manufacturing to the UK stopped because it would be impossible to operate there due to severe delays in procurement and long delays in securing appropriate visas for employees. Manufacturing sent to different country. (for many projects I work on 1-2 days delivery is the expected norm. With 3-5 days for "slow" shipping)

- Stopped buying from UK companies due a) many UK companies no longer shipping to EU, b) long delays when ordering something from the UK.

Of course, this is what it looks like from my perspective. That doesn't represent the totality. But in my work (which spans a few different sectors), the UK sort of became a black hole that we avoid if we can. Find different locations and sources for products, move on.

Noone buys Korean phones or cars or whatever because they are not in the EU... of course not.

The issue, and lack of plan to cope with, is that the change requires a (long?) period of deep reconfiguration.

But still, places like London, Cambridge, etc are doing incredibly well and better than on the continent...

Brexit hasn't been a fairytale but it hasn't been a catastrophe, either.

Except for Germany, which of the major countries are you referring to? Show me numbers.

It has been 10 years. How long do you think this should take? 20 years? And how long before the lost decade (or perhaps decades) have been made up for and the UK goes net positive? 30 years? 50? (The area below the curve is important. You learned about integrals in school, right?).

Trust me: nobody I talk to is interested in doing business with UK companies or in the UK if they can avoid it. Which makes me curious: who are these companies that have seen a boost in foreign trade?

What are the pros? Like actual real world ones, not ones painted on buses by charlatans? The cons have become obvious.

Oh what are the pros again, I seem to have forgotten what the sunlit uplands were supposed to be like...?

The real delta is the delta between what was promised and what was delivered.

Pretending that the outcome wasn't so bad by moving the goalposts closer is, quite frankly, dishonest.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com