Angela Rayner has brutally attacked Nigel Farage for \u201cpromising the world\u201d Brexit would be a success amid new research showing an estimated \u00a340bn blackhole the UK has suffered since leaving the European Union.<\/p>\n
The deputy PM warned Brits to be \u201csceptical\u201d of Reform UK as \u201cthey offer no detail of how to deliver\u201d policies, comparing them to Brexit.<\/p>\n
Asked about the prospect of Reform UK winning a general election, she told ITV\u2019s Lorraine: \u201cNigel Farage was the key architect for Brexit, and all these wonderful things we were going to get, and we haven\u2019t had those wonderful things.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow we can argue this, we were promised a lot, and we haven\u2019t had that. So I think you have to be very sceptical about people that will promise the world the moon on a stick, and then there\u2019s no detail of how they can actually deliver it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Before the referendum, the\u00a0OBR had forecast<\/a>\u00a0that declining investment and trade volumes would result in a 4% loss in the UK\u2019s long-run productivity post-Brexit.<\/p>\n This is the equivalent of a \u00a340bn tax loss for the exchequer between 2019 and 2024. Over the same period, the government raised taxes by \u00a3100bn.<\/p>\n John Springford, an associate fellow at the Centre for European Reform, has now confirmed this was correct. He told the\u00a0Times<\/a>\u00a0that a \u201clarge chunk\u201d of these tax rises would not have been required had the UK remained in the EU or even \u201cchosen a softer form of Brexit.\u201d<\/p>\n And it doesn\u2019t seem like the pain is over yet, with the OBR saying it would take 15 years for the full impact of Brexit to be felt, predicting a 15% drop in trade volumes compared to if the UK had stayed in Europe.<\/p>\n