Brexit Ten Years On: The Economy

Zigurd

Just when the UK thought they had done the biggest self own in history, 'Merica says hold muh beer.

vrganj

We miss you, British friends. Come back home! <3 In related news: > A British poll shows that a new Brexit referendum would reverse the vote that led to Britain’s departure from the European Union a decade ago. Fifty-two per cent of Britons think the UK should rejoin the EU, according to an Ipsos survey of 1,137 British adults conducted between May 14 and May 20. https://www.straitstimes.com/world/europe/new-referendum-wou...

rm445

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.

nostrademons

It's almost like the academics who said that free-trade and globalization were net benefits to the economy were right , and then reversing globalization and shutting borders simply reverses those gains. The interesting part is that while the benefits of globalization were not evenly distributed (part of the reason for the populist backlash against it), reversing it does not seem to benefit the people who were harmed by it . Maybe somebody who actually lives there can correct me, but the working class has seemingly not been lifted back into the middle class just because borders were closed. The factories have not come back. Instead it seems like capital owners benefitted most handsomely from globalization, and then de-globalization just entrenches their gains. And in terms of material gains and consumption, people just do without and all end up poorer. Important lessons for America, which is about to embark on its own de-globalization adventure.

grahar64

"The question was never whether this would involve costs" Brexit was sold as being positive for the economy. The proponents drove a bus around saying they would get 350 million back. It was largely advertised as a net positive for the economy

shevy-java

"Services firms, especially in regulated sectors, lost important market access rights. Free movement ended." You mean Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson lied to the people? I am ... shocked. Ok not really. The strange thing is that Nigel keeps on lying - and people still (!!!) buy his lies. It is a fascinating case study. I concede that Nigel is good at rhetorics, but it also seems as if people want to be lied to. Otherwise they would have realised they were duped. For the other EU member states, having UK no longer torpedo decisions, is actually great. The EU is way too huge anyway - and sadly, wants to expand more and more. That's also going to lead to a break up situation. And populists such as Nigel will take advantage of that (if the UK were in the EU).

tremarley

Some would say Brexit - January 31, 2020 is the UK's independence day.

Uhhrrr

For comparison, Remain advocates predicted a fall in GDP of 3.6-6.0%: https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/brexit-would-put-our-...

haaz

Glad to see that people on hackernews know more about the costs of EU regulation than Jim Ratcliffe, James Dyson, Tim Martin etc. Just look at the AI act, GDPR, and how the EU shot their tech sector in the foot with these. If being in the EU was so great then why don't Norway or Switzerland join? I am an EU citizen and it is extremely convenient in my personal life (common currency, no visas, my sim card works everywhere) but I'm also aware that the most effective governments are city states such as Singapore or heavily decentralized states like UAE, Switzerland, Denmark, even China and up until recently the US and UK. The EU creates far more regulations, red tape, and friction than the single market removes, and tying the fate of the UK to dying economies like Germany and France does no one any good.