The cost
I was interested to read recently the cost of Brexit is still rising inexorably and is continuing to do our country great harm.
Modelling on how our economy would have developed in recent years and into the future if we had stayed in the EU, was undertaken by economists and analysts at Cambridge Econometrics, suggesting that we are taking a huge hit as a result of Brexit. This data has been compared to official data on how our economy has performed up until March 2023 and the OBR forecasts for the future.
It turns out that Brexit has cost the nation £140 billion so far and is set to cost us up to a £311 billion by the middle of the next decade. This is a staggering amount of money.
It has been noted that the report analysed the gross value added – GVA – which is a measure of how much value is added by an area through the production of goods and the actions of services otherwise known as the gross value added or the GVA.
UK GVA was found to be £2,207bn in 2023 under current circumstances, and will be £2,771bn by 2035. This sounds like a lot of money – and it is! Cambridge Econometrica stated without Brexit, the UK would have had a GVA of £2,347bn in 2023, and it would have reached £3,082bn by 2035. In other words, the UK GVA was 6% lower in 2023 than it would have been without Brexit, and wis on courser to be 10.1% lower in 2035.
Cambridge Econometrica also found that, by 2035, it is expected that the UK will have three million fewer jobs, 32% lower investment, 5% lower exports and 16% lower imports, than it would have had if the UK had not left the EU.
All this equates to a huge loss of money to our economy.
How the money could have been used
It is of course, money that could have been used to help build up our NHS. We are all aware that our health service, once the envy of the world is on our knees. We need to recruit more doctors and nurses and to retain them, they need to be better paid.
The money lost could have been used rebuild our shattered education system, providing teachers for children who are currently marginalised and ensure that similarly to NHS staff, teachers and educators are properly remunerated and hence stay as teachers, giving education a much-needed sense of stability.
We could have used the money lost through Brexit to modernise our creaking railway system and perhaps finally bring high-speed rail to the North, including a high-speed rail line from Newcastle all the way to Liverpool as well as ensuring the reopening of local lines such as the Leamside Line and the line between Newcastle and Ashington. Indeed, a proper integrated transport system, including publicly owned buses and rail/Metro could be developed in the Northeast, which would be better both for the economy and the environment.
Some of the money lost could have been used to clean up our dirty water and ensure that our beaches are clean and safe places for our families to visit and our children to play on.
Perhaps most importantly of all, the money could also have been used to help bring our young people, here in the Northeast, good, well-paid new jobs in the green economy as part of a Just Transition to a carbon neutral economy.
The time has surely come for us to stop any lingering pretending that Brexit has been anything other than a huge mistake. We must turn our minds to how we sort out the mess we find ourselves in. Whether that means merely trying to renegotiate our deal with the EU, developing new links, re-joining the single market, or attempting to re-join fully is for others to decide. What is certain is that we must address the problems caused by Brexit and start to deal with them.
One other thing is for sure. Those who caused Brexit, very wealthy men like Cameron, Johnson, and Farage, will not suffer any great financial pain as a result of the huge losses of money lost to our economy.
It will be the working people of our country who will bear the brunt of the Brexit Disaster, just as it has been the working people who have suffered so far as Broken Britain has become an ever-greater reality.
It is time for some honesty and realism, regarding the real cost of Brexit.
