Jill Rutter has a nice piece (HERE) at the Institute for Government, welcoming the end of the Brexit Omertà . It’s good that Labour can openly talk about the negative economic consequences of Brexit, although it’s hard to understand why it's taken them so long. If anyone could and should have been explicit from the very beginning about the damage that the 2016 vote inflicted on this country, it was Labour. They campaigned against Brexit and warned that it would only lead to a weaker economy, and they have been proved right. There was zero reason for Starmer to commit to keep going on the same trajectory that the Tories had set, with only minor course adjustments. It made no sense, politically or economically.
As Ms Rutter points out, the government’s problem is that they’ve now identified the issue, but they have no proposals to make a significant change to the UK’s economic relationship with the EU. As she puts it:
“The much vaunted reset has yet to bear any concrete fruit for anyone except EU fishermen and even if the UK does land its deals – to make agriculture and food exports easier, to participate in the EU energy market, to link emissions trading schemes and so avoid the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment mechanism, to get access to EU defence contracts, and to allow more EU under-30s to work and study in the UK – it will barely make a dent in the estimates of the economic costs from Brexit.”
Labour is a long way behind the voters. Recent polling by YouGov for Best for Britain showed that more than six out of 10 voters thought “Brexit was more of a failure than a success and over half of those say that they think it’s a failure because of the damage to the economy.”
Reeves will not be revealing anything the public doesn’t already know. They understand the problem, they know Brexit was a mistake, they prefer immigration as it was before we left the EU and they want to hear serious proposals to rectify the historic mistake. Tinkering at the edges will not do it.
Now, we learn the ‘reset’ talks underway with the EU have hit a stumbling block. According to The Irish Times, Brussels is demanding more money.
EU member states met on Friday to discuss how much they want the UK to contribute to the EU's regional levelling up funds as the price for dropping checks on animal and plant products and allowing cheaper energy trading. It isn't going to be a small number. They argue that we should pay as Norway, Switzerland and other partners do.
This cannot be a surprise. Britain wants to replicate a lot of what we had before 2020 in terms of single-market access, but without being a member and without a significant contribution to EU funds. If Starmer gets away with it, other countries will demand the same. Switzerland and Norway pay, why shouldn’t we?
And the corollary of that is, if we’re paying in, why not pay a little more, become a full member and get real benefits? That would require much bolder (and politically riskier) steps than the government is prepared to take at the moment, but the rewards would be significantly greater and - more importantly - I think they would have the backing of the majority, particularly among younger voters. The risks are small.
Researchers from King's College London (KCL) have polled people and found that a majority of Britons "do not feel proud of their country." The survey revealed a “frightening increase in the sense of national division” that began post-Brexit and now appears to have “morphed into” party political and other splits around immigration and “culture wars”.
The polling on attitudes also suggested that people increasingly believe the UK is divided, that so-called culture wars exist, and that life was better in the past.
I sense that this is right. There is a growing frustration among the population. They don't need to be told that Brexit has been a clanger. They know it and only want someone to tell them how to put it right.
Labour should stop pussy footing around and get on with it.
The Brexit Prodigals
Another Brexit prodigal has stepped forward. This time it's Richard Tice, the Reform MP for Skegness, millionaire and Dubai resident, speaking to leaders from The City. He has pledged 'big reforms' to financial regulations in London. Presumably, he's forgotten 2008 and all that.
His colleague Danny Kruger (son of Bake Off presenter Prue Leith) tweeted:
Serious message from @TiceRichard at Bloomberg about the dire state of the financial sector. No growth; chronic debt. We used to have 100 IPOs a year in London. This year so far: 13. We need less & better regulation in the City; growth capital for entrepreneurs & SMEs; properly… pic.twitter.com/ALhRdwj1up
— Danny Kruger (@danny__kruger) November 5, 2025
Brexit has given us a moribund financial sector, and one of the men responsible is now offering advice on how to save it. What did his audience think, I wonder?
Note that Tice says: “In 2050, if we don’t change course, debt to GDP will be over 200% ” using forecasts made by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR). It's funny how he accepts the OBR figures when it suits, but not when they forecast a £100 billion hit to Britain's GDP.
We already know what Rob Rooney, formerly Morgan Stanley’s top man in London, thinks of the impact of Brexit on the City. He says it has been disastrous: “ Frankfurt, Madrid, Milan and Paris are all doing better than they were. It has been at London’s expense. There is no question about that.”
This is from an article in The Guardian with the depressing title: ‘The money machine is misfiring’: City blames Brexit for UK’s £20bn productivity headache, that I posted about recently. Britain has been losing market share since 2016 to the Netherlands, Ireland, Spain, Germany and Italy, with the government's analysis showing Britain’s share of the global pie has slumped to 15%, down from 21% in 2010.
Amazing, eh? When will Tice's penny drop moment arrive?
Tesla
We now know a bit more about what Elon Musk must do to earn his $1 trillion pay package and it looks just about impossible. Among other targets, all equally fantastic, he has to boost the company's market capitalisation to $8.5 trillion in the next ten years. This is about twice Britain's entire GDP.
At it's current $1.5 trillion, it is already massively overvalued by about 30X at least. It is a bubble that will soon burst.
Personally, I think Tesla would be better advised to pay him to keep away. He's toxic to the brand.
