The researchers who draw up these briefing papers must try to be fair, honest and truthful, and they have access to most, if not all, the best, most up-to-date information. There are strict rules ensuring political impartiality. Briefings must be completely objective, presenting a balanced overview of alternative policy viewpoints.
The note, brief as it is, is therefore as near as we have come so far to seeing an official report on the result of Brexit. It covers trade, migration, free movement and the impact on GDP. As far as I can see, everything is negative. Nothing shows the slightest improvement.
The section on the economic impact is particularly interesting. The researchers say, rightly, that this is “hard to quantify” but go on to add that “many economists agree that Brexit likely reduced UK GDP compared with what it would have been otherwise, and that it had an adverse effect on UK trade."
“A broad consensus among economists is that Brexit has resulted in the UK economy being smaller than it otherwise would have been. The mainstream view is that Brexit has made trading with the EU more difficult, with additional customs checks and higher barriers to trade raising business costs, negatively affecting trade and investment (and therefore the UK economy as a whole)."
"Studies have estimated that UK GDP (a measure of total UK economic output) is 2% to 8% lower than if the UK had stayed in the EU. In other words, the economy has still grown since the 2016 referendum, but by less than it would have done otherwise.”
They derive the 2-8% figure from studies carried out by Bloomberg Economics, Simon French, the chief economist at the investment bank Panmure Liberum, Goldman Sachs, and research published by the US National Bureau of Economic Research. They also, naturally, include estimates by the Office for Budget Responsibility which uses studies conducted by thirteen other prestigious bodies including the IMF, OECD, the World Bank, and the Bank of England.
All of these august institutions have produced credible reports that Brexit would have a negative impact on trade and therefore on the potential wealth of this country.
To get some semblance of ‘balance’ against these quite damning numbers, the researchers fall back on other data from Julian Jessop, an independent economist and a fellow at the Institute of Economic Affairs, the well-known right-leaning, pro-Brexit think tank, and Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, The Daily Telegraph’s International Business Editor. And that’s it. They are literally scraping the bottom of the pro-Brexit barrel.
Worse, even these two don’t claim that Brexit has been a good thing for the British economy. No, their basic argument is that the negative impacts forecast by all the other economists have been either overstated, based on unrealistic assumptions or flawed.
Needless to say, they themselves don’t make any detailed assessment of what they think the actual impact has been, only claiming that the others are wrong.
As far as I know, the only study that has ever shown a positive economic impact of Brexit, is that by Patrick Minford, who in 2017 said he would produce a report, From Project Fear to Project Prosperity, in the autumn of that year. It apparently claimed Britain’s GDP would gain a £135 billion 'boost' by opting for a hard Brexit. It was absolutely torn to pieces by other economists. Not only did it contain "undergraduate-level errors" and unrealistic assumptions, it “disregarded 40 years of established theory.”
I can't find Minford's report now; it appears it was never published. All that's left is a press release with basic details, and even this can only be found in the web archives. This is essentially the best that proponents of Brexit could come up with. Nobody now claims the UK economy has been boosted by £135 billion or anything like a modestly positive number.
We have taken a hit in GDP, which could be well above £200 billion and certainly isn't less than £50 billion. The briefing paper confirms the OBR as of 2026 is still assuming a 4% (£120 billion) reduction in GDP.
The other section worth looking at is on regulatory divergence. The most recent government report was published in January this year and updated last month. Of 6,925 Retained EU Laws (now called Assimilated Law) 4,221 (61%) were unchanged, and a further 929 (13%) had been amended.
The rest, 1,771, had either been repealed, replaced or allowed to expire. You can be sure these were irrelevant to the UK, utterly trivial or out of date anyway. None were of any consequence.
Essentially, we are still applying about three-quarters of the EU Law we had before Brexit.
The pressure to rejoin grows
Whatever academic arguments can be made for a reversal of Brexit, there is little doubt that British firms which export goods to Europe want to rejoin the single market. A survey for the European Movement shows that 72.8% of firms say that Brexit has harmed their businesses, 96.4% say it has hurt their local communities, and 98.2% want the UK to rejoin the EU’s single market. This is according to a report in The Independent.
Logistics UK head of trade James Mills said there is “a huge prize” in economic growth to be had by fixing the loss in trade and noted that since the UK voted to leave the EU in 2016, UK goods exports by tonnage have fallen 20.7%. Export volumes to the EU have fallen 15.9%, while exports to the rest of the world have fallen a massive 37.2%.
This RoW number isn’t a surprise. Britain imports intermediate goods from the EU to help build our exports, so if you throttle back your supply lines, the impact will eventually be seen in sales. It’s obvious.
I also note this morning that uncertainty surrounds Nissan’s plant in Sunderland, which is currently working at 50% capacity. A former COO says its survival isn’t guaranteed. “If made in Europe excludes the UK, then I think it’s existential for Sunderland. Sunderland will die.”
The EU's Made in Europe policy is openly protectionist. But is it any different to China, which deliberately keeps its currency value down, or Trump's USA slapping tariffs on all and sundry to bring jobs back to America? They do these things because they can. Brexit Britain can't.
Burnham and the EU reset
The prime minister has placed getting a deal with the EU at the heart of his growth strategy. He is seeking better economic access in exchange for a more generous offer to Brussels on a youth experience scheme. In an interview with the FT:
“We cannot ignore our relationship with the European Union,” Burnham says, “and we need to be in a position where we can fix things in an amicable way that will add percentage points to our growth.” A summit “could be” held in November, he suggested, to settle the deal. This is almost two and a half years after Labour's election victory, and we haven't actually reached the table yet!
The FT report doesn’t mention Labour’s red lines, but it didn’t need to. A few days ago, a Downing Street spokesperson insisted that the red lines are “still in place.”
So, we are now in the position of Burnham making it clear that he wants to be “bolder” than his predecessor in taking the UK back to the heart of Europe while refusing to make any real concession beyond a “more generous offer on a youth experience scheme.” Sticking to Labour’s red lines while imagining you can somehow persuade the EU to offer more than it has offered the last five UK prime ministers, and that this will bring “percentage points” to economic growth, is just delusional..
Professor Chris Grey, who usually has the best commentary on these matters, says it's absurd that Burnham keeps pretending that some vast improvement in the terms of the TCA is somehow available without Labour having to soften or remove any of its red lines. If he wants to keep the red lines for electoral purposes, fair enough, but if so, he should stop claiming a significant 'reset' is possible.
Burnham has edged back from donation caps, voting reform, Gaza and rejoining the EU. He increasingly looks like Keir Starmer with a better PR team.
I’m disappointed. I wonder if someone else somewhere in Labour’s ranks is now looking to displace Burnham so that they too can betray their supporters and carry on with Starmer’s policies?
It's all so frustrating isn't it?
