We were told by Nigel Adams in February last year (HERE) that if we voted to leave the EU, he expected us to "leapfrog" Germany and Japan and rise up the league table to become the world's third largest economy. At the time he said we were in fifth place. On Wednesday, at Prime Minister's question time Theresa May told us we were now the sixth largest economy (HERE Hansard column 392). Brexit is apparently like trying to leapfrog a target by jumping backwards.
I thought Nigel was being a tad delusional optimistic at the time since most of our factories are owned by the Germans and the Japanese but it seems that far from us leapfrogging Germany, we have accidentally done a back flip over the French who now, without any of that Sauter par-dessus les grenouilles stuff, have overtaken us. What a result!. This was due to the slump in sterling after the referendum. And India, not far behind and growing at a rate of 7.2% a year (IMF 2017), faster even than China, is likely to leapfrog both of us very shortly. The latest figures are HERE.
On this measure (World Bank figures for 2017 HERE) we are ninth! Apparently with PPP we have managed an even more spectacular backward somersault that puts us behind India, Russia, Brazil and even Indonesia. With that kind of performance and after Brexit all I can say is - look out Tuvalu your 188th spot is looking vulnerable.
