Brexit reduced UK GDP by 6-8%, investments by 12-18% [pdf]

> People who voted for Brexit didnt vote because of GDP and Investments.

Nevertheless they got the opposite of what they voted for, besides lower GDP and investments.

Well, yes. But then again the 'Take Back Control' campaign had those UKIP buses saying "We send the EU £350 million a week, let's fund our NHS instead". An average person is a bit too removed from the GDP/investments conversations anyway.

And their representatives didn't want to leave so decided to drag their feez and do a shit job of it anyway. I didn't vote either way but I expect those paid to represent us to actually do it.

Some did. Economic Euroscepticism is far older than the EU. The idea that the UK can return to the productivity of the Victorian industrial era, with WW2 bravado.

Of course it's tosh, and it unravels as soon as the first horse spooks, but in the run up to the referendum people were making all sorts of stupid claims about what we'd be able to have. Remember Soft Brexit? The idea that the EU would give us favourable terms when we were in no position to negotiate? Absolute madness.

Haha, they mostly had no investment and didn't contribute to GDP.

This is deepening as people with either are now leaving in droves...

It's not somewhat of a stretch, it's a deliberate lie. We get stories like this one every few months here on HN. It's always this kind of thing. They make up an unsupportable counterfactual and then claim a reduction relative to their fantasy world. People point it out and get downvoted by the I'm-an-EU-citizen types who can't accept that there was no impact on the UK from leaving. No negative impact on GDP, no negative impact on trade with the EU, no change to academic funding (UK is back in the Horizon programme, for better or worse, which was supposedly impossible cherry picking).

You can see all such claims are lies by just looking at the relevant graphs and comparing like with like. UK GDP has continued to track that of France. These are neighbors with similar economies, one in the EU and one out.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-maddison-p...

You could also compare to prior trajectory or look at trade impact.

This study doesn't do any of those things. It makes up a convoluted economic simulation and compares against that, with "uncertainty" being a major component. It's the same technique used to predict a recession immediately following the 2016 vote that would cause 800,000 job losses. No recession happened and employment numbers hit record highs. The prior failure of economic forecasting doesn't stop them from doing it again, with full confidence.

The establishment tell these lies about Brexit for the same reason they doctor video footage of Trump. They staked their credibility on these things being a disaster, and when the sky didn't fall it shook their worldview. Letting go of their prior beliefs is hard because the updates required would affect everything, so some of them decided that maybe if they lie hard and often enough they can live in the fantasy forever.

> Was it worth it?

I can only give anecdotes, but the majority of the support I saw for leaving the EU wasn't rooted in hard economics – there were claims about doing our own free trade deals and having an extra £350 Million being spent on the NHS instead, but that was about it. A lot of support centred around how our culture & history ought to be perceived, limiting migration, and not having faith/trust in the EU and our Governments.

Again anecdotes, but the most common reprieve I hear from Leave supporters is that leaving would've been great if not for 1) the years of political deadlock 2) Johnson's deal being naff. For most of us life hasn't improved since leaving (the pandemic right after didn't help); and after the promises about the sunlit uplands if we left, I don't think anything short of a miracle would make it feel like it was worth it.

I think the only people who feel like it was worth it were those who voted Leave through a culture/prestiege lens and put the fact that we left above everything else.

As a British citizen I also lost the right to live and work in 27 countries in the EU. Thanks for that.

The impact on trade is almost entirely in goods and the UK is >80% services. Services is basically unaffected by Brexit. (https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2025/7657...)

Hits on GDP aren't felt equally across the population.

> Fewer workers in UK etc.

You mean fewer European workers. The UK has far more workers today since the post-Covid migration wave.

If you're an older person who's secure and has a pension and whose biggest problem is fear of other people, then this costs you almost nothing and probably alleviates your fears.

If you're younger, heeeeeeelllllllll no.

There isn't less trade. Trade volume with the EU continued on its long term trend.

No

> Was it worth it?

Though I know yours is a rhetorical question, I'll answer: No. Brexit was essentially an anti-immigration and pro-deregulation movement. Simple small-c conservatism. (It was also anti-status-quo, but that was implicit.)

The, uh, "Conservatives" who were tasked with implementing Brexit supercharged immigration and, with considerable assistance from the EU, doubled down on ridiculous social and business regulations, paperwork, and red tape. There was no upside. They just made everything much worse. I know that they expected the Brexit vote to fail, and I think there's a term for their subsequent actions: "Malicious compliance."

Now England is a powder keg if there ever was one. If things are going to kick off, it'll happen there first. As Weimar as America is these days, England is worse.

Well, that one was mostly Kremlin money.

Impressive feat.

I went on a couple of marches for that but no. The percentage of MPs willing to vote for that never went higher than ~40 or 45%.

I think the thing is a bit of a travesty though. At the time of the vote, the apathetic who didn't bother voting were about 60% remain so the overall balance of the population was pro remain but it got forced through for better or worse, probably worse.

A reasonable way of achieving that would have been to announce a referendum on the deal, with the other option being to remain.

But it was idiocy to not set those kinds of terms out before the vote.

52-48 is a reasonably solid win in elections.

Rejoining the EU can absolutely be done, but I think it's unlikely the UK could join on the terms it had before, I can't see that being accepted in the current political climate in Europe.

In theory, any new country joining the EU has to switch to the common currency, the Euro, something the UK was able to gain an exemption from while still a member along with Denmark, Sweden and a handful of others, a long time ago when the Euro was first introduced.

This has always been an issue when discussing Scottish independence too, given the SNP have always claimed Scotland could rejoin the EU and keep the pound; the EU has always said otherwise.

> https://economy-finance.ec.europa.eu/euro/enlargement-euro-a...

Instead of "breenter" it would probably be more realistic for the UK to join up with Mexico, USA, and Canada as a fourth member of that trace bloc. Together they would then have more power to negotiate a favorable trade deal with the EU.

The paper just came out. I would assume they're posting it because it's interesting to a generally economically curious audience, and Brits in particular. No need for posting to be some targeted snipe at America.

Hopefully it leads to more investments in other places. That way the voters will eventually get what they want in a monkey’s paw way. Less immigration because the home countries get more investments and more opportunities.

someone needs a Jump to Conclusions Mat

I'm pretty sure people will tell you that Brexit was bad for a laundry list of other reasons too that do very much directly affect the average person

OK let's look at other measurements: Did Brexit increase UK soft power? Did Brexit increase cultural exchanges? Was Brexit good for the universities? Is the food better and more wholesome? Was racism reduced?

France and Germany are struggling too. Blaming it all on Brexit is just being ignorant

> only a fasicst police state is capable

That's what the fascists always have said.

The post-neoliberals have created even more inequality, and openly oppose any efforts to fix it. The US government is still trying to disrupt food programs for the hungry.

> There is no counter-narrative to that. So we see a rise in isolationism and nationalism.

Few argue for a counter-narrative, but there are plenty. One is that almost everyone in the US is in a family of immigrants. The economic counter-narrative is overwhelming. Also economics is not a zero-sum competition - it's not beggar-thy-neighbor: If your neighbor does well, you do well - they are your employers, customers, employees, lenders, borrowers, renters, etc. Fewer neighbors is a smaller, slower economy.

Surely replacing neoliberalism with social democratic sharia sectarian state will bring prosperity to all. There are so many examples of succesful, prospering countries that have choosen this path in the East. Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Pakistan, Indonesia...

>> GDP is a meaningless measure for all but governments and the very elite.

Source?

The top three GDP per capita are: Lichtenstein, Luxembourg, Bermuda. The bottom three are: Afghanistan, Yemen, South Sedan. As an average person I would rather live in the top countries of the list than the bottom but that's just anecdote.

I remember someone on HN complaining that there were places selling authentic Polish sausages in London, and somehow it sounded they were deeply unhappy about it.

I don't know if average Londoners can still afford authentic Polish sausages, but if they can't, I hope the original commenter is happy now.

If you have a look at figure 2 here: https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/lo...

You'll see that immigration was at record levels post Brexit.

The metrics for that were pretty much: 2 World Wars and 1 World Cup.

Immigration massively up, mainly legal, but illegal immigration’s up too.

Right have been removed from tens of millions of Brits (some like Farage have kept their European citizenship but most have had it taken away)

I’m still waiting for a benefit.