The Tories and Labour are saying one thing on Brexit and doing another

[pellinore]

So now we know. Brexit is proving even worse for the UK economy than the official forecast of a 4 per cent hit to GDP over 15 years. It’s already reached 5.5 per cent, according to a study by the Centre for European Reform (CER) think tank.

Significantly, a disappearing Covid effect no longer masks the damage of leaving the EU. John Springford, the CER’s deputy director, said it was now clear that the difference between Britain’s sluggish performance compared to similar economies was down to Brexit rather than the pandemic.

The CER calculates that Brexit is costing the government £40bn a year in lost revenue, which on ministers’ own figures would allow them to give all public sector workers an inflation-linked pay rise instead of a real-terms cut and still have £12bn to spare. The think tank also cites a very clear Brexit effect on business investment, which hits productivity and therefore the politicians’ holy grail of growth.

Both the Tory and Labour leaders say one thing about Brexit in public and do another in private. Behind closed doors, they now recognise the damage is irrefutable but cannot spell it out in public – Sunak because he was a Leaver and cannot admit Brexit was a mistake, Starmer because he thought it was a mistake all along but doesn’t want to remind Leave supporters whose votes he needs.

Voices: The Tories and Labour are saying one thing on Brexit and doing another (msn.com)

Edited December 21, 2022 by pellinore

[pellinore]

Thousands of UK businesses are “banging their heads against a brick wall” fighting the bureaucratic mess set up after Britain left the European Union, a leading business lobby group has warned.

Failure to sort out the problems quickly is threatening to “seriously damage” the long-term competitiveness of the UK, the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) warned ministers in a highly critical report.

It said the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA), set up to govern trade between the UK and the EU is continuing to present major problems for thousands of small and medium-sized companies trying to trade with the UK’s biggest customer two years after the deal was signed.

UK companies ‘banging their heads against a post-Brexit bureaucratic brick wall’ (msn.com)

The UK is rapidly becoming poorer, culturally, politically, and economically, because our voting pensioners are afraid of the modern world, they are afraid of Europe, they are afraid of foreigners, and they want to return to the 1950s. Who can blame them?- they were young then, optimistic, life was full of promise, and Brexiter politicians persuaded them we could return to this idyll, so that they, the politicians, could make more money unhindered by international human rights, workers rights; and if the UK crashed and burned, so what? It wasn't even the "will of the people" we all know only a minority voted for Brexit, but until there is a political way out, we are all reduced to watching our country burn down in front of us.

 

Edited December 21, 2022 by pellinore