{"id":1060866,"date":"2026-07-01T02:26:07","date_gmt":"2026-07-01T02:26:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1060866\/"},"modified":"2026-07-01T02:26:07","modified_gmt":"2026-07-01T02:26:07","slug":"significant-damage-how-brexit-is-still-draining-the-uk-economy-10-years-later","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1060866\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Significant damage’: How Brexit is still draining the UK economy 10 years later"},"content":{"rendered":"

When the UK<\/a> voted to leave<\/a> the European Union<\/a>\u00a0on June 23, 2016, the close-run result dumbfounded many and kickstarted a climate of political tension in the UK that has become\u00a0arguably worse<\/a>\u00a0ever since.<\/p>\n

With polls finding that\u00a023% of leave voters<\/a>\u00a0now regret their choice \u2013 either because they\u2019ve changed their mind on Europe, or feel that politicians bungled the exit process \u2013 it seems many agree that Brexit<\/a> has not been a success.<\/p>\n

Watch moreBrexit: 10 years of regret?<\/a><\/p>\n

But there is one area where 10 years of data shows the true scale of its failure \u2013 economists now estimate that Brexit has reduced the UK’s gross domestic product<\/a>\u00a0by\u00a0as much as 8 percent<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

This means average the Briton is up to 8 percent poorer than if Brexit had never happened, while at the national level there is an equivalent “loss in tax revenue that the government is getting which it spends on public services\u201d, said Jonathan Portes, professor of economics and public policy at King’s College, London.<\/p>\n

Among economists, \u201cthere’s a clear consensus that Brexit has done significant damage\u201d, Portes added.<\/p>\n

\u2018Pure hell\u2019 <\/p>\n

To analyse the Brexit data, economists at Stanford\u2019s Institute for Economic Policy Research\u00a0used two models<\/a>. The first compared the UK\u2019s rate of growth over 10 years to other countries, factoring in global economic shocks such as Covid-19<\/a> and the impact of wars in Ukraine<\/a> and the Middle East<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore the Brexit referendum, the UK was doing okay, and we’ve fallen behind relative to our peers since then,\u201d said Gregory Thwaites, one of the authors of the Stanford study and associate professor of economics at the University of Nottingham.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur economy is about 8 percent smaller than it would be if we had not left the European Union<\/a>, based on a comparison with other countries,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

The second method assessed firms within the UK to see how well those that have frequently interacted with the EU since Brexit performed compared with those that have not.<\/p>\n

It found that those still in high contact with the EU were performing significantly less well. \u201cWhen you run those numbers, it looks like the UK is about 6 percent poorer than it would have been without having left the European Union,\u201d Thwaites said.<\/p>\n

The UK’s goods trade \u2013 especially cars<\/a> and agri-food produce<\/a> \u2013 has been hit particularly hard, as Brexit ramped up paperwork demands, making everyday procedures more time-consuming and costly for businesses.<\/p>\n

\"Farmers,<\/p>\n

Farmers, food producers and food system workers take part in a march to demand more government ambition on UK food and farming policy, London, October 15, 2022. \u00a9 Alberto Pezzali, AP <\/p>\n

The owner of a UK logistics company told a government committee\u00a0in January that it was \u201cpure hell\u201d to acquire a\u00a0sheaf of paperwork with 26 stamps<\/a>\u00a0to export lamb and beef to the EU \u2013 as opposed to the single sheet needed before Brexit.<\/p>\n

There are hopes that the UK and EU will implement a new agreement to\u00a0ease trade<\/a>, particularly for dairy products, eggs, fish and fresh red meat, that would come into effect from summer 2027.<\/p>\n

But that will come too late for the businesses that have already folded under increased demands. UK food exports to the EU have\u00a0shrunk by nearly a quarter<\/a>\u00a0since Brexit came into effect, according to Britain\u2019s Food and Drink Federation.<\/p>\n

Read moreUK to rejoin Erasmus student exchange programme in post-Brexit reset<\/a><\/p>\n

Brexit \u2018held the UK back\u2019 <\/p>\n

At the same time, the impact of Brexit has made a significant contribution to UK\u00a0food price inflation<\/a>\u00a0that has seen basics such as orange juice\u00a0soar by 134 percent.<\/a><\/p>\n

While higher earners may be able to absorb the price hikes and stagnating wages that have impacted Britons across the board since the referendum, it is more difficult for others. \u201cIt hits the bottom harder, and that means that the poor are suffering more,\u201d Thwaites said.<\/p>\n

However, he added, it is not as simple as drawing a straight line from Brexit to potential indicators of poverty \u2013 such as the\u00a0soaring use of food banks<\/a>\u00a0in the UK over the past 10 years\u00a0\u2013 as there are so many other societal and economic factors at play.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A volunteer puts together food parcels at Bradford Central Foodbank in northern England on May 24, 2022 as a growing number of Britons struggle to buy basics. \u00a9 Oli Scarff, AFP <\/p>\n

\u201cBrexit has never been the UK’s only [economic] problem by any means,\u201d said Portes. \u201cLike other European countries, it has lots of problems with\u00a0lack of investment<\/a>, slow growth and lack of innovation \u2013 but Brexit, over and above these, has held the UK [economy] back.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 10-year drain Brexit has been on the UK economy came at a time when the country could\u00a0little afford it<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Welfare, health care and education services have never fully recovered from\u00a0austerity cuts<\/a>\u00a0implemented by former prime minister\u00a0David Cameron<\/a>\u2019s government in the 2010s \u2013 the same government that called the Brexit referendum<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Watch more‘Brex-what?’ Episode 2: Why did Cameron call the referendum?<\/a><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, prisons are in a\u00a0“dire” state<\/a>, the national road network is\u00a0falling into disrepair<\/a>, and the UK\u2019s defence chief has warned that, without investment, the armed forces will have to undergo\u00a0operational cuts<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ten years on from a\u00a0referendum that shrank the UK economy and reduced tax revenue,\u00a0poverty levels are rising<\/a>\u00a0and public services are crumbling.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe ways to mitigate it are to try and reverse some of the damage from Brexit directly, by negotiating a closer arrangement with the EU, and to run the country as well as possible in every other respect,\u201d Thwaites said.<\/p>\n

But as the aftershocks of Brexit continue to ripple through the economy, there seems little hope of recovery any time soon. \u201cMy forecast would be that the damage continues roughly the same level that it’s at now,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When the UK voted to leave the European Union\u00a0on June 23, 2016, the close-run result dumbfounded many and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1060867,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5226],"tags":[802,748,3070,1700,2000,299,5187,1699,126,3448,4884,1201,16,15],"class_list":["post-1060866","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brexit","tag-brexit","tag-britain","tag-british-economy","tag-economy","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-european","tag-european-union","tag-features","tag-gdp","tag-great-britain","tag-trade","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116842359341576690","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1060866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1060866"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1060866\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1060867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1060866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1060866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1060866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}