Brexit has cost $46bn — and the UK hasn’t even moved out
‘If Britain had voted to Remain, our analysis suggests that the UK government deficit would largely have been eliminated by Brexit day’
As Britain’s negotiations to leave the EU enter their crunch moment, let’s be clear on one thing: the EU doesn’t need to punish Britain for leaving; the referendum did that just fine. Latest figures show the warnings of economic self-harm Brexiters such as Boris Johnson derided as Project Fear are fast becoming real, while the promises of a Brexit dividend are still too remote even to assess. Most studies seek to calculate the economic impact of the various degrees of Brexit. The UK treasury puts the damage at as much as 6% of GDP. Bloomberg Economics analyst Dan Hanson estimates that the level of UK GDP could drop between 3.2% and 6.7% by 2030, depending on the option chosen.
Such estimates are controversial. We don’t know the shape of the Brexit deal, including what arrangements will be put in place to keep trade flowing. And Brexiters complain that such exercises tend to use assumptions that favour negative results. Yet it is possible to make some unbiased judgments about t...
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