Ten years after the referendum, Brexit remains one of the most divisive events in our modern history.
For some, it has delivered economic stagnation, trade barriers and diminished global influence – but for others, it has restored democratic control and given Britain the freedom to chart its own course.
But has Brexit really been the unmitigated disaster its critics claim? Our writers – Ian Dunt, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, Mark Wallace and Julie Burchill – offer their perspectives.
Ian Dunt: It devastated our economy and nation
It has been almost exactly as bad as we expected it to be. The big economic organisations said in the run-up to the 2016 referendum that it would be a disaster, specified roughly quite how disastrous it was likely to be, and were proved correctly. The economic impact of the decision itself was not as bad as expected, but the economic impact of actually leaving the EU played out as per expectations
The National Institute of Economic and Social Research – one of those much derided experts which Michael Gove detested so much – found that by 2023, UK real GDP was 2-3 per cent lower than it would have been if we had remained. These effects will escalate, reaching some 5-6 per cent of GDP by 2035. This is money we all urgently need right now. We deprived ourselves of it.
In the end though, the worst impact was not economic but social. Brexit carved the country into two warring cultural tribes, with Europe representing a symbolic encapsulation of their divisions which then went on and tainted completely unrelated matters like National Trust reports and single-sex loos. Once that split existed, there was an incentive for politicians to speak to one part of it and to pitch voters against one another, instead of trying to stitch together broad electoral coalitions. It encouraged extreme rhetoric rather than moderation.
Brexit did not just devastate our economy. It also devastated what it is to be British and how this country conducts itself. It struck at the soul as well as the body. And this is where it had its most debilitating effect.
Ian Dunt is a columnist and the author of ‘How to be a Liberal‘
Protesters from both sides of the Brexit debate argue outside the Houses of Parliament in 2019 (Photo: Jack Taylor/Getty)
Julie Burchill: Brexit’s biggest problem? We didn’t get enough of it
We are a small, inventive, dynamic nation; we need to comprehend the weaknesses and strengths of this situation, not hide in being part of a big power bloc. We can move fast and change when the facts do; look at the success of the Covid vaccine roll-out.
At a time when devolution is called for everywhere from Cardiff to Catalonia, it makes no sense to have one’s laws made by bureaucrats in another country.
I was lucky enough to grow up in the constituency of Tony Benn, who said in 1975: “For people who don’t have money or power, it is the vote that is their main safeguard.”
As we are about to get rid of an unsatisfactory prime minister, we should treasure this human right; not fritter it away dreaming of being part of the shoddy Potemkin empire which is the European Union.
The only thing that’s wrong with Brexit is that we didn’t get enough of it.
Julie Burchill is a columnist and author
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: We were made the enemies within
Brexit was a car crash. It caused multiple social fractures. Some will never heal. Think back to the way the UK proudly projected itself in the 2012 Olympics. Every racial, religious, ethnic minority, disabled and able- bodied, poor and rich, LGBTQ + folk, the white majority, the political left and right together, cheered the participants and hailed the diversity and energy of our capital and country.
Boris Johnson, London’s mayor, was the loudest of the cheerleaders. Back then the shape-shifter was a liberal, modernist mayor. In 2008, he was seriously considering an amnesty for undocumented immigrants in London.
Just four years on, Johnson had joined the gang of Brexit instigators who wanted to get the UK out of the EU, stop free movement and make these isles small, mean and nativist again. They succeeded.
After decades of struggling to get treated as equals, and, just as importantly, to feel we belonged, Brexiters made us into enemies within. First the targets were EU workers, then asylum seekers, then those with work visas, now it’s all migrants of colour. It will get worse. Nigel Farage and his lot and small nation Tories destroyed the ties that bound us to each other and the EU. And despicably blame foreigners for breaking Britain. Nauseating.
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown is a columnist
Boris Johnson talks to supporters during a Vote Leave rally. ‘Brexiters made us into enemies within,’ writes Yasmin (Photo: Carl Court/Getty)
Mark Wallace: Doomsters have been proven wrong
Leaving the EU was a decision to take back control from unaccountable officialdom and place it in the hands of British voters. The 17.4 million people who voted Leave wanted the fundamental right to choose, hold accountable and fire those who set the rules which impact our lives.
Democratic self-determination doesn’t come with guarantees – indeed it means accepting people may choose things you dislike – but it does offer the best chance to navigate a turbulent, fast-changing world.
We already have plenty of examples. Some I support (like our renewed global trading relationships, our ability to achieve such rapid vaccination, and flexible innovation on AI and tech) while others, such as Andy Burnham’s plan for greater state action in the economy, or VAT on school fees, I don’t. But it’s thanks to Brexit that we have the right to decide the best way forward ourselves.
There are many things I’d change about the last decade. The failure of Leavers and Remainers to come together did harm and cost time. But 10 years on, the doom-laden warnings of recession and even “super-gonorrhea” (yes, seriously) haven’t come to pass, we’ve grown as fast as France and faster than Germany, and our future is ours to decide.
Mark Wallace is chief executive of Total Politics Group