It’s BAD, really BAD – we’re talking about Brexit Affliction Denial.
The 2024 UK elections have witnessed the disturbing political denial of one of the most calamitous acts of national self-harm to have taken place in a western democracy. The Conservative and Labour parties competed over who can say the least about Brexit – it was the dullest 0-0 draw in the history of electoral contest. The Liberal Democrats once made re-joining the EU a key part of their electoral platform, but this time round, they kept it very low key indeed (See Note 1).
With neither the Conservatives nor Labour prepared to address the many problems created by Brexit, one wonders if anything will ever be done about them by those in power. Worse still, in not speaking out about the severe damages it caused, they have allowed those who thrive on peddling Brexit delusions to carry on with their lies and misinformation.
Perhaps politicians are unduly worried that being honest about Brexit would lose them support. But as of May 2024, just 31% of people in Great Britain thought it was right to leave the EU, while 55% thought the decision was wrong [https://www.statista.com/statistics/987347/brexit-opinion-poll/]. According to an Opinium poll taken at the end of 2023, only 10% of those surveyed believed leaving the EU had helped their personal financial situation, while 35% said it had been bad for their finances; 9% believed Brexit had been good for the NHS, and 47% were convinced it had a negative impact on the health service; and barely 7% thought it had helped keep prices low in UK shops, compared with 63% believing it was a significant factor in both the ongoing cost of living crisis and in fuelling inflation. [https://www.euronews.com/2023/12/31/has-brexit-been-a-failure-a-majority-of-brits-think-so]
And it's not just a matter of subjective views. Objective analysis of the impact of the trade barriers which Brexit has landed the UK with in doing business with the EU, shows that the UK exports were £23billion down each quarter compared with its earnings had it stayed in the EU – a GDP reduction of 4-5% [https://www.cer.eu/insights/brexit-four-years-answers-two-trade-paradoxes]. According to a detailed study by Cambridge Econometrics, as a result of Brexit, the average Briton was nearly £2,000 worse off in 2023, and reduced export opportunities meant there were nearly two million fewer jobs overall in the UK [https://www.london.gov.uk/new-report-reveals-uk-economy-almost-ps140billion-smaller-because-brexit].
In terms of business investment, which is vital for economic health, researchers at the Bank of England, using a large survey of business in the UK, estimated that it was 23% lower than it would have been in 2020/21 due to Brexit [https://www.economicsobservatory.com/how-has-brexit-affected-business-investment-in-the-uk]. In Scotland, it was found that as food price inflation reached a 45-year high, Brexit was responsible for a third of that rise [https://www.gov.scot/news/counting-the-impact-of-brexit/]. In Wales, the overall loss to the Welsh budget amounted to over £1billion [https://www.gov.wales/written-statement-loss-funding-wales-result-uk-governments-arrangements-replacement-eu-funding].
As for the wild claims about Brexit was needed to stop people trying to come to settle in the UK, before Brexit when the UK was part of an EU scheme which ensured unauthorised migrants to the UK could be returned to the first safe EU country they had entered, there was not one case of small boat crossing to the UK with asylum seekers. After Brexit, the UK severed cooperation with the EU, and refugees desperate to get to the UK had no choice but to risk their lives to get across by sea. The numbers then grew from the low hundreds in 2018 to tens of thousands in 2023 [https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/sep/15/small-boats-industry-science-brexit-made-our-lives-worse].
There are some who cling to their beliefs that Brexit has enabled the UK to do things like rolling out the Covid vaccine quickly, but that was something the UK could actually have done as a member of the EU. Then there are claims about the odd trade deals the UK has made on its own without having to go through the EU, but the tiny gains these brought pale into insignificance compared with the substantial trade that had been lost with our former EU partners, and they have come with having to make considerable concessions that we would not even have to contemplate as part of the much more powerful EU negotiating bloc.
The ultimate indictment of Brexit Affliction Denial comes from the fact that across Europe, the previously vocal EU-sceptics – in France, Italy, the Netherlands, etc – have all stopped advocating pulling their country out of the union. They know how bad it is.
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Note 1: The SNP having to only think about voters in anti-Brexit Scotland, and the Greens with a chance of winning in just a few pro-EU areas, both talked about reconnecting with the EU; while Reform (formerly known as the Brexit Party) simply doubled-down with more fabrications about the wonderful life that would come from being even more anti-Europe, anti-immigration, and anti-minorities.
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