Brexit Ten Years On: The Economy
Posted by mooreds 7 hours ago
Comments
Comment by grahar64 6 hours ago
Brexit was sold as being positive for the economy. The proponents drove a bus around saying they would get 350 million back. It was largely advertised as a net positive for the economy
Comment by pyeri 6 hours ago
Comment by kayo_20211030 6 hours ago
Comment by JojoFatsani 2 hours ago
Comment by dudul 6 hours ago
Of course the argument was made re: EU contributions staying "home" to be allocated domestically, but the economy was always shrugged away as a "necessary unknown to take back control"
Comment by kibibu 6 hours ago
Comment by dudul 6 hours ago
Comment by milch 5 hours ago
Sure, you could argue that they didn't mean it would be positive for the economy to save that money, but "we will save 350M/week" is what's on the buses and their website. Even if we assume the average voter clicks through here and reads everything point by point, or goes onto the website in the first place rather than by the headline, it is at the very least heavily implied... Otherwise what is the argument?
Comment by kalleboo 1 hour ago
Comment by slater 5 hours ago
Comment by kibibu 1 hour ago
Comment by phs318u 3 hours ago
“Probably”. Wow. Talk about self delusion and historical revisionism. You can’t bring yourself to admit the obvious reality that the Brexiteers were - to a man - self-serving, mendacious, con artists.
Comment by rm445 6 hours ago
It's hard to avoid concluding that the actual effects of Brexit have been smaller than this kind of analysis suggests, and while we squabble about such things our countries are missing opportunity after opportunity.
Comment by LikesPwsh 6 hours ago
I'm sure there's a little truth to both, and noise from all kinds of other factors.
Comment by Zigurd 6 hours ago
Comment by mytailorisrich 6 hours ago
Frankly, I think the "harm" done to young British people is vastly overblown and more symbolic than actual.
Comment by Zigurd 6 hours ago
Comment by AlexandrB 6 hours ago
[1] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?end=2024...
Comment by gpt5 6 hours ago
Comment by derriz 5 hours ago
Comment by bborud 6 hours ago
Comment by janice1999 6 hours ago
Comment by bborud 6 hours ago
Pretending that the outcome wasn't so bad by moving the goalposts closer is, quite frankly, dishonest.
Comment by mytailorisrich 6 hours ago
Comment by vrganj 6 hours ago
Comment by jimjohnny123 6 hours ago
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Legal_systems_in_Eur...
Comment by derriz 5 hours ago
Comment by jimjohnny123 5 hours ago
Comment by mytailorisrich 6 hours ago
Comment by bborud 6 hours ago
- At previous gig relocation of manufacturing to the UK stopped because it would be impossible to operate there due to severe delays in procurement and long delays in securing appropriate visas for employees. Manufacturing sent to different country. (for many projects I work on 1-2 days delivery is the expected norm. With 3-5 days for "slow" shipping)
- Stopped buying from UK companies due a) many UK companies no longer shipping to EU, b) long delays when ordering something from the UK.
Of course, this is what it looks like from my perspective. That doesn't represent the totality. But in my work (which spans a few different sectors), the UK sort of became a black hole that we avoid if we can. Find different locations and sources for products, move on.
Comment by mytailorisrich 6 hours ago
The issue, and lack of plan to cope with, is that the change requires a (long?) period of deep reconfiguration.
But still, places like London, Cambridge, etc are doing incredibly well and better than on the continent...
Brexit hasn't been a fairytale but it hasn't been a catastrophe, either.
Comment by bborud 5 hours ago
It has been 10 years. How long do you think this should take? 20 years? And how long before the lost decade (or perhaps decades) have been made up for and the UK goes net positive? 30 years? 50? (The area below the curve is important. You learned about integrals in school, right?).
Trust me: nobody I talk to is interested in doing business with UK companies or in the UK if they can avoid it. Which makes me curious: who are these companies that have seen a boost in foreign trade?
Comment by MattPalmer1086 6 hours ago
Comment by mugivarra69 6 hours ago
Comment by Uhhrrr 6 hours ago
https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/brexit-would-put-our-...
Comment by MagnumOpus 5 hours ago
Comment by Uhhrrr 4 hours ago
Comment by tremarley 6 hours ago
Comment by haaz 5 hours ago
Just look at the AI act, GDPR, and how the EU shot their tech sector in the foot with these.
If being in the EU was so great then why don't Norway or Switzerland join?
I am an EU citizen and it is extremely convenient in my personal life (common currency, no visas, my sim card works everywhere) but I'm also aware that the most effective governments are city states such as Singapore or heavily decentralized states like UAE, Switzerland, Denmark, even China and up until recently the US and UK. The EU creates far more regulations, red tape, and friction than the single market removes, and tying the fate of the UK to dying economies like Germany and France does no one any good.
Comment by zoenolan 2 hours ago
https://www.ft.com/content/5c8a871f-9a49-45f4-9ac0-543a608a5...
Comment by jsbisviewtiful 4 hours ago
I'm not an economist nor am I an European citizen, but both of those countries have very successful and wealthy economies. It doesn't seem necessary or advantageous for them to join the EU as, if anything, introducing a second currency and new laws that are tied to many other countries' prosperity would just risk destabilization. If the situation for either country changes in the future, it might make more sense for them to join at that point, but as of the moment they have no need or widespread desire to. Last I heard, Switzerland is even voting on whether to cap their population, which would prob not fly in the EU.
Comment by soco 4 hours ago
Comment by nostrademons 6 hours ago
The interesting part is that while the benefits of globalization were not evenly distributed (part of the reason for the populist backlash against it), reversing it does not seem to benefit the people who were harmed by it. Maybe somebody who actually lives there can correct me, but the working class has seemingly not been lifted back into the middle class just because borders were closed. The factories have not come back. Instead it seems like capital owners benefitted most handsomely from globalization, and then de-globalization just entrenches their gains. And in terms of material gains and consumption, people just do without and all end up poorer.
Important lessons for America, which is about to embark on its own de-globalization adventure.
Comment by kev009 6 hours ago
Comment by nostrademons 6 hours ago
Comment by kev009 6 hours ago
Comment by foxygen 6 hours ago
Comment by nostrademons 6 hours ago
When it comes to globalization, there is a legit role for hegemonic military power, and it's to keep trade lanes open. So for example, interdicting Somali pirates or Houthi rebels or keeping the Straight of Hormuz open would be legit uses of force. Sinking suspected drug boats in the Caribbean or imposing their own blockade would not be. Providing a stable currency is legit, using that currency to impose sanctions on countries or individuals that do things you do not like is not legit.
There is another conversation to be had about the use of power and how enforcing your ideals often comes into conflict with the values of your ideals themselves, but that is another conversation, not for this thread.
Comment by foxygen 5 hours ago
> Providing a stable currency is legit
The US does not "provide" a stable currency, it outright forces everyone to use it.
> how enforcing your ideals often comes into conflict with the values of your ideals themselves
The US/NATO couldn't care less about enforcing their "ideals". This is all about economic gain. It is very odd how liberal ideals must be enforced upon Iran, but not upon Saudi Arabia, which is a US ally, no?
> but that is another conversation, not for this thread
So discussing the use of force in the global economy is not fit for a thread about free-trade?
Comment by ece 6 hours ago
Comment by madaxe_again 6 hours ago
Comment by cherryteastain 6 hours ago
Second and third laws of thermodynamics - our universe has no (macroscopic scale) reversible processes and every irreversible process causes losses
Comment by _HMCB_ 6 hours ago
Comment by Zigurd 6 hours ago
Comment by water-data-dude 6 hours ago
Comment by ako 6 hours ago
Comment by bryanrasmussen 6 hours ago
Comment by lenerdenator 6 hours ago
The US actually has enough weight as an economy to have some bargaining power at trade negotiations. Now, whether the negotiator is working in good faith or not is another matter, but if the US suddenly stopped doing business with an individual country, it would likely cause the other side at least some problems.
The UK does not have the weight the US does, and sanctioned itself from all of its largest trading partners in one stroke. If it wants back into the EU (which would likely be the smart thing to do), serious concessions will have to be made. Like, "How much do you really like the pound sterling?" concessions.
Also, Reform's gaining steam, so those concessions are unlikely to be given.
Comment by notahacker 6 hours ago
Comment by lenerdenator 6 hours ago
Yes and no.
There's always been an undercurrent of contempt for the US, particularly from Europe. Even during the Clinton and Obama years. There's no satisfying that.
Comment by notahacker 6 hours ago
Of course. But there's a difference between the sort of mild disdain tinged with envy you get from being the self-appointed "leader of the free world" and the reaction that electing a nakedly corrupt thundering moron who constantly belittles and threatens allies whilst kowtowing to a former superpower gets you.
(Of course, there are people that always regarded the US as actively hostile, but they tended to be rival superpowers, Global South socialist governments, Islamists and Western protest groups, not Western officials who might once have identified as strongly aligned with the US. And for the wider world, there's a difference between the longstanding view that many of the values the US preached were sanctimonious hokey and the increasing view that the values the US preaches are fundamentally opposed to stability and democracy)
Comment by ToucanLoucan 6 hours ago
Perhaps not yet, but we have at minimum 2 and a half years of the Trump Family Circus to contend with, and they've gotten a lot destroyed in what time they've had so far.
And, Trump isn't the real problem. Anti-intellectualism here has hit it's zenith. Fully a third of our country is so propagandized and media-illiterate that they can't really be said to share a reality with the rest of us anymore.
I don't know how we can fix this. Talk radio, Fox News, and social media may well have damaged our civil life beyond repair. And they're still doing it.
Comment by lenerdenator 6 hours ago
Comment by ToucanLoucan 6 hours ago
Comment by pstuart 6 hours ago
My hopes are tempered, to say the least.
Comment by lenerdenator 6 hours ago
Also, many of the same ills that caused fascism the first time are starting to re-emerge. You can see this in the rise of AfD.
Comment by pstuart 6 hours ago
We are on the cusp of a full fascist takeover and the only thing possibly preventing that is the incompetence and self-dealing at the top.
I expect to get downvoted by the partisans here, but I stand by my words and would love to be shown wrong with credible evidence, but that is extremely doubtful.
Comment by vrganj 6 hours ago
In related news:
> A British poll shows that a new Brexit referendum would reverse the vote that led to Britain’s departure from the European Union a decade ago.
Fifty-two per cent of Britons think the UK should rejoin the EU, according to an Ipsos survey of 1,137 British adults conducted between May 14 and May 20.
https://www.straitstimes.com/world/europe/new-referendum-wou...
Comment by jimjohnny123 6 hours ago
Poll Suggests Most Britons Oppose Giving Up Brexit Powers for Closer EU Ties
https://www.theportugalnews.com/news/2026-06-08/poll-suggest...
Comment by arjie 6 hours ago
Comment by mr_sturd 6 hours ago
Comment by frereubu 6 hours ago
Comment by rtkwe 6 hours ago
I'm almost certain that the final Brexit would not have been approved and pretty equally certain people would be vastly unhappy with the requirement to rejoin.
Comment by mytailorisrich 6 hours ago
Comment by hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm 6 hours ago
Comment by vrganj 6 hours ago
Comment by shevy-java 6 hours ago
You mean Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson lied to the people?
I am ... shocked. Ok not really.
The strange thing is that Nigel keeps on lying - and people still (!!!) buy his lies. It is a fascinating case study. I concede that Nigel is good at rhetorics, but it also seems as if people want to be lied to. Otherwise they would have realised they were duped.
For the other EU member states, having UK no longer torpedo decisions, is actually great. The EU is way too huge anyway - and sadly, wants to expand more and more. That's also going to lead to a break up situation. And populists such as Nigel will take advantage of that (if the UK were in the EU).
Comment by RishiByte 6 hours ago