The Brexit effect: how leaving the EU hit the UK | FT Film

Summary

Der Brexit hat die britische Wirtschaft beeinträchtigt, was in steigenden Importpreisen, gestiegener Bürokratie und eingeschränktem Handel mit der EU zum Ausdruck kommt. Obwohl der Austritt aus der EU politische Unabhängigkeit suchte, führte er zu wirtschaftlichen Kosten und hat die Wachstumschancen des Landes beeinträchtigt. Die Diskussion um die wirtschaftlichen Auswirkungen des Brexit ist in der Politik tabu und es mangelt an einer offenen Debatte über die notwendigen Anpassungen.

Takeaways

• 🇬🇧 Die Brexit-Politik hat zu einer Verschlechterung der wirtschaftlichen Situation in Großbritannien geführt, einschließlich steigender Preise, sinkender Investitionen und eingeschränktem Handel.
• 🤔 Die Brexiteer-Argumente für eine wirtschaftliche Dividende durch Brexit scheinen nicht überzeugend zu sein, da die negativen Auswirkungen auf die Wirtschaft offensichtlich sind.
• 🏛️ Es gibt eine politische Verschwiegenheit über die Auswirkungen des Brexit, die sowohl die Regierung als auch die Labour Party umfasst.
• 📉 Die Abstimmung von 2016 zum Verlassen der EU hat den Pfund um etwa 10% gegenüber unseren Handelspartnern dezimiert und die Importpreise gestiegen, was zu Inflation und Armut führte.
• 🚚 Die Brexit-Entscheidung hat zu erhöhten Transportkosten und einer Steigerung der Bürokratie für Unternehmen geführt, die Waren in und aus dem EU-Binnenmarkt verschiffen.
• 💔 Die langfristigen Auswirkungen des Brexit auf den Handel und die Wachstumsmöglichkeiten von kleinen Unternehmen in Großbritannien sind negativ, da viele von ihnen ihre Geschäftstätigkeit in den EU-Märkten reduzieren oder beenden.
• 📉 Der Brexit hat zu einer Verringerung der Geschäftsbeziehungen zwischen Unternehmen in Großbritannien und dem EU-Binnenmarkt geführt, was die Wachstumsmöglichkeiten einschränkt.
• 💼 Die Brexit-Entscheidung hat zu einer Verschiebung der Geschäftsaktivitäten einiger Unternehmen in den EU-Märkten, was weniger Beschäftigung und Investitionen in Großbritannien bedeutet.
• 📊 Die wirtschaftliche Analyse zeigt, dass der Brexit zu einer Verringerung des BIP und der Lohnniveaus in Großbritannien beiträgt, insbesondere in vergleich zu anderen G7-Ländern.
• 🏦 Die Brexit-Entscheidung hat auch Auswirkungen auf die Finanzmärkte und die Regierungsverschuldungskosten, da die Märkte die Wirtschaftspolitik der Regierung als riskant einstufen.
• 👶 Die jüngeren Briten, die gegen den Brexit stimmten, sind einer der Verlierer, da sie weniger Möglichkeiten haben, in der EU zu reisen, zu arbeiten und zu investieren.

Q & A

Was war das Hauptthema des 'mini' Budgets und wie steht es im Zusammenhang mit den wirtschaftlichen Folgen des Brexit?

Das 'mini' Budget war die kulminierende Verkörperung der Wirtschaftspolitik, die seit dem Brexit-Referendum umgesetzt wurde. Es reflektiert eine besondere Vorstellung von Souveränität über wirtschaftlichen Verstand, mit der die Brexit-Befürworter argumentierten, aber die wirtschaftlichen Kosten nun zutage treten.

Wie hat sich die Brexit-Entscheidung auf Handel, Preise und Investitionen ausgewirkt?

Die Brexit-Entscheidung hat negative Auswirkungen auf Handel, Preise und Investitionen gezeigt. Diese sind nicht auf die Pandemie oder die Energiekrise zurückzuführen, sondern sind eindeutig auf den Brexit bezogen.

Welche politischen Konsequenzen hat der Brexit für die britische Regierung und die Labour Party?

Der Brexit hat eine politische Verschwörung des Schweigens um seine Auswirkungen hervorgerufen, die sowohl die Regierung als auch die Labour Party umfasst. Es gibt einen gemeinsamen Wunsch, über die negativen Folgen des Brexit nicht zu sprechen.

Wie hat sich der Brexit auf die Handelsbeziehungen zwischen der EU und dem Vereinigten Königreich geändert?

Der Brexit hat zu einer deutlichen Reduzierung der Handelsbeziehungen geführt. Die LSE hat berechnet, dass die Anzahl der Beziehungen zwischen dem UK und der EU um etwa ein Drittel gesunken ist, in den ersten sechs Monaten nach Inkrafttreten des Handels- und Kooperationsabkommens.

Was ist die Meinung des Skripts über die Aussagen der Brexit-Befürworter, dass der Brexit zu einer wirtschaftlichen Dividende führen wird?

Das Skript kritisiert, dass die Brexit-Befürworter bisher keinen überzeugenden Grund dafür präsentiert haben, warum der Brexit zu einer wirtschaftlichen Dividende führen sollte, stattdessen werden die negativen wirtschaftlichen Folgen hervorgehoben.

Welche Rolle spielte die 'mini' Budget im Kontext der Brexit-Diskussion?

Die 'mini' Budget war das Ergebnis der Wirtschaftspolitik nach dem Brexit-Referendum und hat die Märkte erschüttert, was auf eine fehlende Nachhaltigkeit und Verantwortung der Regierungspolitik hindeutet.

Wie hat sich der Brexit auf die Infrastruktur und Logistik von Unternehmen ausgewirkt, die Waren in und aus dem UK befördern?

Der Brexit hat zu erheblichen Logistikproblemen und Kostenerhöhungen geführt. Unternehmen berichten von langen Wartezeiten für die Zollabfertigung und erhöhten Bureaukratiekosten, was die Geschäftstätigkeit erheblich erschwert hat.

Was sind die langfristigen wirtschaftlichen Auswirkungen des Brexit auf das Vereinigte Königreich gemäß den Schätzungen des Resolution Foundation?

Das Resolution Foundation schätzt, dass der langfristige Einkommensverlust durch den Brexit 470 Pfund pro Person betragen wird, was auf eine insgesamt negative Auswirkung auf die Wirtschaft und die Einkommen der Briten hindeutet.

Wie hat sich der Brexit auf die Beschäftigungssituation in bestimmten Sektoren wie Bauwesen, Gastronomie und Landwirtschaft ausgewirkt?

Der Brexit hat zu einer Rekrutierungskrise in diesen Sektoren geführt, da der Zufluss von Arbeitskräften aus der EU eingeschränkt wurde. Dies hat eine kurzfristige Störung verursacht und erfordert eine Anpassung der Branchen.

Was ist die Haltung der EU gegenüber dem Vereinigten Königreich in Bezug auf科研项目 wie das Horizon Science Research Project?

Die EU blockiert das Vereinigte Königreich von dem Horizon Science Research Project mit einem Volumen von 95 Milliarden Euro, weil die britische Regierung versucht, ihre Verpflichtungen in Nordirland einseitig aufzulösen, was die EU-UK-Beziehungen vergiftet.

Wie wird der Brexit von jüngeren Briten, die gegen den Brexit gestimmt haben, in der Zukunft empfunden werden?

Jüngere Briten, die gegen den Brexit gestimmt haben, werden langfristig benachteiligt, da ihnen die Mobilität in der EU eingeschränkt ist und sie für den Arbeitsmarkt in Europa zusätzliche Hürden zu überwinden haben.

Was ist das Hauptargument der Brexit-Befürworter, um die positiven Aspekte des Brexit zu untermauern?

Die Brexit-Befürworter argumentieren, dass der Brexit Großbritannien die Möglichkeit gibt, seine globale Potenzial auszuschließen, indem es eine flexiblere Wirtschaft und Deregulierungen ermöglicht, was jedoch als unüberzeugend angesehen wird.

Wie wird die 'Cakism'-Strategie der Brexit-Befürworter im Skript kritisiert?

Die 'Cakism'-Strategie, auch als 'Kirsche-Pflücken' bekannt, wurde im Skript kritisiert, weil sie darauf basiert, alle Vorteile des EU-Binnenmarkts zu behalten, während gleichzeitig die Freiheit genutzt wird, eigene Wege zu gehen, was im Verhandlungsprozess mit der EU als unhaltbar erwiesen wurde.

Outlines

00:00

🇬🇧 Brexit-Auswirkungen auf die Wirtschaft

Der 'mini' Budget repräsentiert die Höhepunkte der Wirtschaftspolitik nach dem Brexit-Votum. Es wird kritisiert, dass die Brexit-Befürworter keinen klaren Nutzen für die Wirtschaft dargelegt haben. Die Abkehr von der EU hat zu steigenden Importpreisen und Inflation geführt, was die Menschen ärmer machte. Die Kosten für das Verlassen der EU beliefen sich auf etwa 870 Pfund pro Haushalt. Unternehmen wie Aston Chemicals berichten von gestiegenen Transportkosten aufgrund des Brexits. Der 'mini' Budget hat die Märkte erschüttert, und die Regierungsverschuldungskosten sind gestiegen, da die Finanzmärkte die Budgetpolitik für riskant halten. Es wird diskutiert, dass der Brexit die wirtschaftliche Leistung des Vereinigten Königreichs beeinträchtigt hat, insbesondere im Vergleich zu anderen fortgeschrittenen Volkswirtschaften.

05:00

📦 Herausforderungen des Handels nach dem Brexit

Der Brexit hat den Handel erheblich kompliziert, da das Vereinigte Königreich kein Mitglied der EU-Einzelmarkt- oder Zollunion mehr ist. Unternehmen wie Little Star Jewellery und Hampstead, die Teeimporteure, haben mit langen Zollverzögerungen und steigenden Kosten konfrontiert worden. Die EU-Beziehungen der kleinen Unternehmen haben sich um etwa ein Drittel verringert, was die Wichtigkeit von Handel und Wachstum für diese Unternehmen betont. Die langfristigen Auswirkungen beinhalten eine Verringerung des Handels und Investitions in das Vereinigte Königreich, da Unternehmen ihre Geschäftsaktivitäten in die EU verlagern.

10:01

📉 Wirtschaftliche Folgen und Investitionsrückgang

Der Brexit hat zu einer Abnahme von Geschäftsinvestitionen im Vereinigten Königreich geführt, während in anderen G7-Ländern eine Zunahme verzeichnet wurde. Die Regierung hat Maßnahmen wie die Superdeduktion eingeführt, um Investitionen zu fördern, diese haben jedoch wenig Wirkung gezeigt. Die Unsicherheit über die wirtschaftliche Zukunft des Landes behindert das Wachstum von Investitionen, was für die langfristige Wirtschaftlichkeit des Landes besorgniserregend ist.

15:12

🛑 Nordirland und die EU-Beziehungen

Der Brexit hat auch die Beziehungen zwischen der EU und dem Vereinigten Königreich beeinträchtigt, insbesondere in Bezug auf Nordirland. Die Schaffung einer Grenze im irischen Meer zur Vermeidung einer Rückkehr der nord-süd-Grenze auf Irland hat die Beziehungen vergiftet. Die EU blockiert das Vereinigte Königreich von Programmen wie dem Horizon Science Research Project, was für britische Wissenschaftler und Universitäten von Bedeutung ist. Nordirland hat durch den Brexit einen einzigartigen Handelsvorteil in Europa erhalten, da es einen Fuß in beiden Märkten hat.

20:13

🏦 Auswirkungen auf das Finanzwesen und die jüngere Generation

Der Brexit hat auch die Finanzwelt beeinträchtigt, insbesondere in der City of London. Obwohl die Stadt weiterhin eine wichtige Finanzzentrale ist, hat der Brexit Zweifel an ihrer Rolle aufgeworfen. Junge Menschen, die gegen den Brexit gestimmt haben, sind unter den Verlierern, da sie nicht mehr so einfach in Europa reisen, arbeiten oder investieren können. Die Brexit-Opportunities Minister-Position wurde geschaffen, um die Vorteile des Brexits zu erkunden, aber bisher sind diese Vorteile nicht überzeugend dargestellt worden.

25:13

🗳️ Politische Herausforderungen und wirtschaftliche Realität

Der Brexit hat politische und wirtschaftliche Herausforderungen mit sich gebracht, die bisher nicht ausreichend diskutiert oder gelöst wurden. Es gibt eine politische Verschwörung des Schweigens über die Auswirkungen des Brexits, die sowohl die Regierung als auch die Labour Party umfasst. Die wirtschaftlichen Fakten müssen offen diskutiert werden, um ein klares Bild der Situation zu erhalten und zu verstehen, wie der Brexit das Vereinigte Königreich und seine Wirtschaft beeinflusst hat.

🚫 Kritik an der Brexit-Kommunikation und der 'Cakism'

Der Brexit wurde von Kritikern als 'ökonomischer Selbstmord' bezeichnet, da er zu einer Verringerung des nationalen Einkommens und der Wachstumsrate beiträgt. Die Brexiteer-Argumente, dass das Vereinigte Königreich seine globale Potenzial nach dem Brexit entfalten kann, haben viele beeinträchtigt, da die Handelsabkommen, die bisher geschlossen wurden, nicht die Vorteile ersetzen können, die durch den Verlust des barrierefreien Handels mit dem EU-Binnenmarkt entstanden sind. Die EU-Regelungen und -standards haben andere Länder und Handelsblöcke beeinflusst, und nun kann das Vereinigte Königreich die Verantwortung für seine wirtschaftlichen Entscheidungen nicht mehr auf die EU abwälzen.

Keywords

💡Brexit

Brexit ist die Abkürzung für 'British Exit' und bezieht sich auf das Referendum vom 23. Juni 2016, in dem die Bürger des Vereinigten Königreichs darüber abgestimmt haben, ob das Land aus der Europäischen Union austreten soll. Im Video wird Brexit als Akt der 'ökonomischen Selbstverletzung' beschrieben, da es zu negativen Auswirkungen auf die Wirtschaft, Preise, Investitionen und Handel geführt hat. Die Diskussion um Brexit ist ein zentrales Thema des Videos, das seine langfristigen Auswirkungen auf das britische Wirtschaftswachstum und die Handelsbeziehungen mit der EU untersucht.

💡ökonomische Selbstverletzung

Der Begriff 'ökonomische Selbstverletzung' wird verwendet, um die Entscheidung des Vereinigten Königreichs, aus der EU auszutreten, zu beschreiben. Es geht um die Annahme, dass diese Entscheidung langfristig schädliche Auswirkungen auf die britische Wirtschaft haben wird, indem sie den Zugang zum EU-Binnenmarkt einschränkt und Handelshemmnisse schafft. Im Video wird argumentiert, dass die negativen Effekte von Brexit bereits sichtbar sind und nicht nur auf die Pandemie oder die Energiekrise zurückzuführen sind.

💡EU-Binnenmarkt

Der EU-Binnenmarkt ist eine wirtschaftliche und zollamtliche Union der EU-Mitgliedstaaten, die es Unternehmen ermöglicht, Waren und Dienstleistungen frei von Zöllen und Handelshemmnissen zu handeln. Im Video wird darauf hingewiesen, dass das Vereinigte Königreich nicht mehr Teil des EU-Binnenmarkts ist, was zu zusätzlichen Kosten und bürokratischen Hürden für Unternehmen führt, die mit der EU handeln oder ihre Produkte dort verkaufen möchten.

💡Handelsabkommen

Ein Handelsabkommen ist eine Vereinbarung zwischen zwei oder mehr Ländern, die den Handel erleichtern und die Handelshemmnisse verringern. Im Kontext des Videos wird darauf eingegangen, dass das Vereinigte Königreich nach dem Brexit ein 'sehr knochiges' Freihandelsabkommen mit der EU hat, das jedoch nicht die gleichen Vorteile wie das frühere Mitgliedschaft im Binnenmarkt bietet. Die Diskussion um Handelsabkommen ist wichtig, um die wirtschaftlichen Folgen von Brexit zu verstehen.

💡Inflation

Inflation ist die allgemeine Steigerung der Preisniveaus von Waren und Dienstleistungen in einer Wirtschaft. Im Video wird argumentiert, dass der Austritt aus der EU zu einer Abwertung der britischen Währung geführt hat, was Importe teurer macht und die Inflation um etwa 2 bis 3 Prozentpunkte erhöht hat, was wiederum die Kaufkraft der Menschen verringert hat.

💡Souveränität

Souveränität bezieht sich auf die absolute und unbeschränkte Macht und Unabhängigkeit eines Staates. Im Video wird diskutiert, wie die Entscheidung für Brexit auf die Rückkehr der Souveränität und die Kontrolle über die nationale Wirtschaft abzielte, auch auf Kosten des wirtschaftlichen Wohlstands. Diese Diskussion zeigt die politischen und wirtschaftlichen Dilemmata, die mit der Entscheidung für mehr Souveränität einhergehen können.

💡Regulierung

Regulierung bezieht sich auf die Schaffung und Durchsetzung von Regeln durch Regierungen oder Aufsichtsbehörden, um bestimmte wirtschaftliche oder soziale Ziele zu erreichen. Im Video wird darauf hingewiesen, dass das Vereinigte Königreich nach dem Brexit seine eigenen Regeln und Standards schaffen kann, was jedoch zu zusätzlichen Kosten und der Notwendigkeit der Doppelregistrierung von Produkten führen kann, wie im Fall der Chemieindustrie.

💡Deregulierung

Deregulierung ist der Prozess der Entfernung oder Reduzierung von Regulierungen, um den Markt mehr Freiheit und Flexibilität zu geben. Im Video wird kritisiert, dass die Brexiteer-Ideen von einer 'Deregulierung' und einer 'entfesselten' Wirtschaft zu zusätzlichen Kosten und Bürokratie führen, anstatt tatsächlich wirtschaftliche Vorteile zu bringen.

💡Freihandel

Freihandel bedeutet den Handel von Waren und Dienstleistungen ohne Zölle, Quoten oder andere Handelshemmnisse. Im Video wird betont, dass das Vereinigte Königreich nach dem Brexit von der EU-Freihandelzone ausgetreten ist und nun mit den daraus resultierenden wirtschaftlichen Herausforderen konfrontiert ist, insbesondere in Bezug auf den Verlust des barrierefreien Handels mit dem EU-Binnenmarkt.

💡Binnenmarkt

Der Binnenmarkt ist ein wirtschaftlicher Raum, in dem Waren, Dienstleistungen, Kapital und Arbeitnehmer frei zirkulieren können. Im Video wird dargelegt, wie das Vereinigte Königreich aus dem EU-Binnenmarkt ausgetreten ist und nun mit den Folgen dieser Trennung konfrontiert ist, einschließlich der Einführung von Zöllen und Handelshemmnissen, die das Wachstum und die Wettbewerbsfähigkeit britischer Unternehmen beeinträchtigen können.

💡Sonstige Handelsabkommen

Sonstige Handelsabkommen beziehen sich auf Handelsverträge, die das Vereinigte Königreich nach dem Brexit mit anderen Ländern außerhalb der EU abgeschlossen hat. Im Video wird darauf eingegangen, dass diese Abkommen zwar einige Vorteile bringen können, jedoch nicht die gleichen Vorteile wie das frühere Mitgliedschaft im EU-Binnenmarkt bieten und dass sie in der Regel mit Ländern geschlossen wurden, mit denen das Vereinigte Königreich bereits über Handelsabkommen verfügte.

💡Brexit-Effekt

Der 'Brexit-Effekt' bezieht sich auf die negativen wirtschaftlichen Folgen, die das Vereinigte Königreich nach dem Austritt aus der EU erleiden musste. Im Video wird der Brexit-Effekt als eine separate wirtschaftliche Auswirkung identifiziert, die nicht mit der Pandemie oder der Energiekrise zu verwechseln ist, und als Hauptgrund für die wirtschaftlichen Probleme des Landes dargestellt.

Highlights

The 'mini' Budget is seen as the culmination of economic policies since the Brexit vote, prioritizing sovereignty over economic rationale.

Post-Brexit, the UK faced shipping challenges to the EU, with a near-disastrous impact on trade.

Brexiteers have not provided a clear argument for the economic benefits of Brexit.

A political conspiracy of silence exists around the effects of Brexit, affecting both government and Labour Party.

The UK's departure from the EU is characterized as an act of economic self-harm, with negative effects on prices, investment, and trade.

The UK's Brexit outcome is described as the hardest and least aligned version, excluding the single market and customs union.

The immediate cost of Brexit was calculated to be around 870 pounds per household, affecting people's financial well-being.

Brexit has led to increased freight costs and the devaluation of the pound, impacting import costs and business operations.

The 'mini' Budget's economic policies have been viewed as reckless, affecting government borrowing costs and market confidence.

A comparison of Britain with other advanced economies shows a lack of trade recovery post-pandemic, indicating a Brexit effect.

Brexit has resulted in a significant drop in the number of trade relationships between UK small businesses and their foreign counterparts.

The Resolution Foundation estimates a long-term wage hit of 470 pounds per person due to Brexit.

Brexit has increased bureaucracy, posing challenges for small businesses struggling to adapt to new regulations.

Northern Ireland's unique position post-Brexit, with one foot in each single market, has been an economic boon.

The Brexit debate is politically charged, with a lack of honesty from both parties about its economic implications.

The Brexit Opportunities Minister role signifies the government's push for positive outcomes from Brexit, despite challenges.

The Brexit 'dividend' remains elusive, with no clear benefits identified, and the economic impact still a subject of debate.

Transcripts

The "mini" Budget was really the culmination

of the economic policies that have been put

in place since the Brexit vote.

A very particular idea of sovereignty

over economic good sense.

We couldn't ship anything to the EU, nothing.

It's bordering on disastrous.

The Brexiteers haven't really formulated a cogent case

as to why Brexit is going to deliver a dividend.

There is a political conspiracy of silence

around the effects of Brexit.

It spans the government, it spans the Labour Party.

Make Brexit work.

The UK's decision to leave the European Union

is an act of economic self-harm.

In terms of prices, investment, and in terms of trade,

we're seeing negative effects, not a pandemic effect, not

an energy crisis effect.

These are very clearly Brexit effects.

When the UK voted to leave the European Union in 2016,

it seemed like a simple decision between leaving and staying.

What we've ended up with, through many years

of back and forth, has been pretty much

the hardest, least aligned version of Brexit

that you could get.

We're not part of the European single market.

We're not part of the customs union.

We just have a very bare bones free trade agreement.

And the costs of that have become clear over time.

Of course, those have been masked

by the Covid-19 pandemic, which shut down economies

all over the world.

And then the crisis in Ukraine, which

has scrambled global energy markets,

helped to drive inflation.

But we're just now starting to see

the Brexit effect coming through and it's not

particularly pretty.

Let June the 23rd go down in our history as our Independence

Day.

We've got our country back.

We see it, first of all, in terms of the original vote

to leave the EU.

That sent the pound down about 10 per cent

against our trading partners, and that

makes imports more expensive.

It also makes your exports more competitive.

But in this case, our exports didn't budge.

They didn't go up at all, but our import prices went up,

and that raised inflation by about 2 per cent to 3 per cent.

So that simply made people poorer.

When it's been calculated that the immediate cost of that

was about 870 pounds per household.

I'm Dani Loughran.

I'm the Managing Director of Aston Chemicals, a speciality

chemical distributor for the personal care industry.

Well, our freight costs went up.

Everything that's costed in dollars around the world

became more expensive if you're paying in sterling,

and that was caused by Brexit.

For many years, the Brexit side of the debate

felt they won the argument because there hadn't been

much absolute panic in markets.

In the recent "mini" Budget, Kwasi Kwarteng

really spooked the markets.

Sterling absolutely plummeted, then

subsequently recovered a bit.

But more serious was what's happened

to government borrowing costs, because the financial markets

have taken the view that the Budget was effectively

reckless.

You remember the statement we've had enough of experts.

The "mini" Budget was really the culmination

of the economic policies that have been put

in place since the Brexit vote.

Brexit's proponents refused to even discuss

the idea that Brexit's a factor in the UK's performance.

Brexit opponents, or Remainers, want

to pin everything on Brexit.

The truth is inevitably somewhere in between.

But to say that Brexit isn't a factor in what you're seeing

in the UK performance is silly.

Of course, it is.

We're starting to see a very interesting pattern emerging,

comparing Britain with the performance

of other advanced economies.

After the pandemic, there was a trade recovery

by all the other G7 countries and Britain's trade recovery

has been more or less flat.

So the UK fell behind in its trade intensity.

One of the other things you can measure

is the drop off in the number of trade relationships

between smaller companies in the UK

and their foreign counterparts.

And that's important because it tells you

something about trade patterns, but also

tells you something about the way

that smaller companies in the UK used

to grow by gradually expanding their business,

selling stuff into the European single market,

and that's simply not happening anymore.

The LSE has calculated that the number of relationships

between the UK and the EU fell by about a third

in the first six months after the Trade and Cooperation

Agreement came into force.

The Resolution Foundation has calculated

that the long run hit to wages will be 470 pounds per person.

Brexit has increased bureaucracy.

Many small businesses have really

struggled to get to grips with that.

I'm Kiran Tawadey.

Hampstead is an organic tea company.

We import tea from all over the world

and sell it all over the world.

We were told that we would have the most amazing deal.

We're going to get our sovereignty

and we were going to keep all the advantages

of being in the EU.

As a business, we were dumb enough to believe that.

Come January last year, we got an order from Italy,

we shipped it, as normal, thinking

there'll be a little bit of paperwork

and we'll figure it out.

And it sat for 12 weeks in different customs' houses.

So the reality was very different.

I'm Rob.

I'm Vicky.

And we co-founded Little Star Jewellery in 2017

as a husband and wife team.

The plan was always to establish the brand in the UK first,

and then Ireland, onwards to France, onwards to Germany.

The whole question of Brexit didn't really

come into my thought much because at no point

did I think it would be as complicated for businesses

to grow and to develop.

Remember, when we were part of the single market,

you could throw a box of tea or a packet of bangers

into the back of a van in Birmingham

and just drive it to Barcelona, or Bonn, or Brussels

without let or hindrance.

Now you can't do that.

The reality was January to June, we couldn't ship anything

to the EU, nothing.

It's 27 countries, they all have different borders,

they all have different rules.

And we were treated as a third country.

And we just had to suck it up.

Come May, I decided I needed to do something.

I said, what if I set up my own entity in Europe

and made that the master distributor for our company

and for our products.

And rather than sending small consignments

at a time, which were very costly, and complicated,

and time-hungry, and resource-hungry why not

just do one big consignment every so often.

Clear customs, all those formalities, VAT once,

and then distribute out of the warehouse

to all of your clients in the European Union.

That means less business taking place in the UK

and more business taking place in the European Union.

It became just unviable for us to continue

to export from the UK and use the UK

as our European distribution hub.

Lorries would sit there for days on end.

So we moved our entire European business to Poland.

That immediately halved the amount

of product coming through this warehouse.

We are now using fewer freight partners

in the UK, more in Germany and Poland,

paying our customs duties to EU countries.

We're employing fewer people in the UK and more in Poland.

It's a reduction in money that we

are paying to the UK economy.

We were lucky that we were able to do that.

We've got some agents in France.

We're doing really well in the Netherlands and in Spain.

All of that has just disappeared.

We lost so much business overnight with Holland,

but it doesn't mean that we have enough business already

established that we'd go and set up an office in Amsterdam.

It's not viable for a business of our size of two people.

Getting the product to customers in the European

Union would have been 2 days, has now become 21 days.

The only angle for us around that

is to do deals with distributors,

but those people work on between 30 per cent

and 35 per cent margins.

We're left with virtually nothing

or we let the business go.

We got a Dutch sales agent who opened over 30 doors

in the space of two months, was over 30 customers have become 2

because only 2 of them can actually

be bothered with the implications of what they've

got to do to get stock from us.

It's just too much of a headache.

That is the long-term danger for the British economy.

That smaller companies that used to expand

by starting to move into European markets,

which was very easy to do before 2016,

will simply just not do that.

We were just upsetting all our customers.

One of them actually said to us, we

don't want to deal with the UK anymore

when we can find equal products from within the EU.

So I'm really sorry.

It was a tough conversation.

We went to a trade show.

No European customers came to the UK pavilion.

And we overheard one of them saying,

there's no point going there.

With Brexit, we don't even know what's going to happen.

So there's no point trying to build new alliances

with British suppliers.

The damage from non-tariff barriers

is it puts the UK behind a wall.

The European Union, 27 countries,

that have one set of rules for the movement of goods, people,

capital, and labour.

It's broadly more cost, more aggro, more uncertainty,

more delays, less efficiency.

In some cases, a sort of unequal playing

field with competitors overseas.

A French company will buy from Germany

because they'll probably be able to get the same product easier

and without any of the extra costs

that we're having to apply to get it out of the UK.

We design all of the range here, and then we

send it out to manufacturers in Thailand and Hong Kong.

We have a tariff for it coming into the UK,

then have to pay another tariff when

we're sending out of the UK, because it's not

produced in the UK.

The EU is very bureaucratic.

Before that we were within the bureaucracy and now

we're outside of it.

The whole story about EU red tape

making things more difficult for businesses from our perspective

is a complete lie.

Since 2016, business investment has

been growing in all other G7 countries, but not in the UK.

You can see that for a very long time business

investment was an upward curve in the UK,

but since 2016 in particular and the Brexit vote,

it's been plateauing.

And the government's been trying to rectify this.

It's been throwing lots of money at it.

They've introduced something called the superdeduction,

where you get huge allowances if you invest

in capital and innovation, but it hasn't really

shifted the dial.

And really worrying for the future of our economy

because in the end, investment drives

the capital and the ability for economies

to grow into the future.

And some people are saying, I mean,

Brexit's not the only thing by any stretch of the imagination,

but something is going on.

There might be a small effect that the UK is a more service

sector driven economy than others.

But France is just as much of a service sector

economy as the UK.

Germany, big manufacturing economy,

isn't that much more of a manufacturing

economy than the UK.

And in every other country, we've

seen much more business investment.

This is the Brexit effect.

People don't know the direction of the UK economy.

Inevitably business investment doesn't grow as strongly.

We've seen in all areas, in prices, in terms of investment,

and in terms of trade, we're seeing negative effects

due to Brexit, which we can now pinpoint as a Brexit effect,

not a pandemic effect, not an energy crisis effect.

These are very clearly Brexit effects.

Plainly there's been a huge impact on the British economy

caused by the Covid pandemic.

Equally the supply chain effects of the Ukraine war,

particularly on the energy price.

It would be ludicrous to claim that problems facing

the British economy are exclusively down to Brexit,

but what you can do is to draw a comparison between Britain

and other countries.

We see the UK pretty close to the bottom of the league table

in terms of the forecast for economic growth,

particularly in 2023.

So the UK essentially sees no growth at all.

And the only country that was worse than the UK

was sanctioned Russia.

You can explore the gap between the UK's performance, which

has uniquely suffered Brexit, and the performance

of other economies that have not.

The UK government would argue that's something

to do with the bungee jump effect of the pandemic

where Britain went down, then came back up more quickly,

and now things are settling down again.

I think it's really easy for the government

to try and push the Brexit effect under the carpet

and blame everything onto Covid, and now everything

onto Ukraine.

I can see it in the figures and in the way

that our business is operating that we were really

hit badly by Brexit last year.

We've put measures in place that are

detrimental to the British economy unfortunately,

but will help us.

The Office for Budget Responsibility

thinks that ultimately Brexit will

cause the UK to be 4 per cent worse off.

It's about 100bn pounds a year that the economy is not

producing 40bn pounds of tax revenues or so.

We are poorer because we're not getting that economic growth

that we otherwise would have done.

The Brexiteer notion of a Brexit dividend

is often based around the idea that the UK

can have a nimbler economy.

It can deregulate.

The difficulty is, when you deregulate, you create

a separate regulatory system.

The chemical industry spent 500mn pounds

over a decade registering their chemicals in the European

Union, which gave them access to the British market and 27

other countries.

They're now having to re-register

all of those chemicals for a separate UK register

at a cost now estimated by the government at 2bn pounds.

So what we've essentially done is ask industry

to spend billions of pounds duplicating a regime that

already existed in the EU.

And because we want to be sovereign,

we want to be different, we're building our own.

But that is just cost.

I don't understand anyone who says that deregulation is going

to be a benefit to industry.

From my industry's point of view,

it is nothing but extra costs, bureaucracy, and work

for no advantage whatsoever.

It's a British business.

After we've left, the EU has faced a recruitment crisis.

Areas like construction, hospitality, social care,

agriculture.

Again, you can argue till you're blue in the face about how

much of that is Brexit, how many people left because of Brexit,

or how much of that was because of Covid.

Some people would argue that's for the better,

that we've cut off that supply of cheap European Union labour

that was able to come across to work in the UK under free

movement.

The idea eventually is that companies will invest more

in machinery and other ways to enhance productivity

to compensate.

But it's certainly caused some disruption in the short-term.

And the idea that the government was putting forward last year

that this was all part of the plan

to develop a high-skilled, high-wage economy

was problematic at the time and is problematic today.

So the end of free movement means

that the economy is reshaped.

For some industries, like hospitality and construction,

or soft fruit growing, that creates a painful period

of adjustment because those industries

were predicated on the idea that there would be free movement.

But ultimately that's a political choice.

We don't have to have a soft fruit industry.

We had one as a result of free movement.

We now have to decide if we want one going forward.

The long running row over Northern Ireland,

creating a border in the Irish Sea

to avoid the north-south border returning

on the island of Ireland has poisoned EU-UK relations.

The EU is using us as a negotiating chip

and saying that Britain can't join the Horizon Science

Research Project, which is worth 95bn euros,

hugely important to British scientists

and British universities.

But it's blocked because the British government

is trying unilaterally to rip up its obligations in Northern

Ireland.

While we have that attitude still in place,

I think it's very difficult to see our trading

relationships improve.

The discussion about Northern Ireland and its future trading

relationship was one of the things that bedevilled

the negotiations about Brexit.

Everybody knew it was going to be a problem,

but we did the deal anyway.

We voted for Brexit.

We signed a so-called Northern Ireland Protocol,

which Boris Johnson and Lord David Frost,

the former Brexit minister who negotiated the Northern Ireland

Protocol, spent the last several years trashing.

I seem to think it's become of some surprise

that the European Court of Justice

applies EU rules to Northern Ireland when they have agreed

that Northern Ireland should remain as part of the EU

single market for goods.

The one thing I say about the Northern Protocol

is that it's given Northern Ireland's an incredible trading

position in Europe.

It's the only place in the whole of Europe,

which has one foot in the UK single market

and another foot in the European Union single market.

It's an unwelcome fact for Brexiteers

that Northern Ireland has become an economic success story

and booming, certainly in terms of inward investment.

One of the reasons it's doing well

is because it has a place in the European single market

for goods.

It's exactly the same trading position with the European

Union that the whole of the UK had

until a couple of years ago.

There is a political conspiracy of silence around Brexit

and the effects of Brexit.

It spans the government, it spans the Labour Party

in particular.

It's very hard to separate out the effects of Covid

and the effects of Brexit.

The governor of the Bank of England

doesn't want to talk about it.

It's become a kind of taboo around this whole subject.

We absolutely need an honest debate

about the economic effects of Brexit.

Once you had a government, of whichever party willing to look

at the facts, then they could start

saying it looks as if Brexit has hurt us.

It's making you poorer.

This is what our evidence suggests.

The evidence will say that, by the way.

And then once you say that to the public

and keep repeating it, you can start opening the debate.

Politically, the truth is neither party

can be honest about Brexit.

The Tory Party doesn't want to be honest

that the actual choice that Brexit presents

is between being a rule-taker, between subjugation,

like Norway, and self-harm, which

is all the economic damage that comes from walling yourself off

from your nearest and biggest market.

And the Labour Party doesn't want to talk about Brexit

because it reminds voters why they voted Tory.

The Labour Party, as the Tory's frame it,

tried to block Brexit.

This is still a live rail in British politics.

People don't want to go anywhere near Brexit.

It's divided the country.

It's divided communities.

It's divided families.

But in a way, that shields us from a debate,

which we should be having, about how we can make Brexit

functioning in a way which doesn't distort the economy.

People who speak out against Brexit

are often decried as Re-moaners or Re-maniacs.

We're all being asked to accept something

which in 2015 was only the official policy of the UK

Independence Party.

Conservative Party, the Labour Party, the Liberal Democrats,

Greens, trade unions, the CBI, the whole of British political

and civic society believe Britain was better off inside

the European Union.

And yet we are all being told we have to pay allegiance.

This is a new national policy.

I expected there to be a one year down the road recap

what went wrong, and what was right, and how we can fix it,

but we haven't seen that.

It would be really good to hear what other people's

experiences have been.

There might be some good news stories, I don't know.

I haven't heard any.

I find it hard to think of anyone who said,

this has been brilliant for my business.

Some businesses will win as a result of Brexit.

Businesses that can produce products

for the UK market that are now too complicated or too

difficult to import from the EU.

That doesn't necessarily mean that the UK economy is winning.

EU-based companies have gained some of our contracts.

The EU freight companies that are gaining our freight

business, that isn't in the UK anymore,

they're all doing quite well.

The people in Poland that we've had

to employ in warehouses rather than people in the UK,

they're doing quite well.

In theory, the city of London is a place

where the UK being able to make its own rules

should be important.

This is our sector that we're the best at,

that we know the most about.

We were responsible for a lot of rule

making while we were within the EU.

To date, we haven't seen the results of that.

The predictions of doom for the city of London

were always overdone.

Big institutions, in particular, spent time actually

quite early on in the process Brexit proofing

their operations so that they could operate legally

whatever the outcome was.

What we've seen since then I think

is a slow drip where business and people get relocated

to other places where it makes more sense for them to be.

The city was the natural place to do financial business

in Europe and Brexit introduced a question mark into that.

We weren't given enough information.

We weren't told what Brexit would actually look like.

The losers will be some of the younger people

who voted against Brexit.

If you look at the age profile of people who voted for leave,

there's a vote amongst the older members of the population.

The younger generation will start to discuss this topic.

They can't travel easily anymore.

They need a nomad visa if they want to work in Europe.

They can no longer invest in Europe easily.

And with the geopolitical situation on a knife-edge,

it would be nice to be a part of a bigger group.

And I feel sorry that we aren't for the next generation.

Don't watch people who are not rich Remainers.

Will Britain leave the EU on time?

Sure.

You certainly hear conservatives who

say that if you can't demonstrate

the benefits of Brexit by the next election,

you're going to be in serious trouble.

And so you have the creation of jobs like Brexit Opportunities

Minister.

Leaving the European Union is the most fantastic opportunity

for the United Kingdom.

The benefits of Brexit are always just around the corner.

If this happened six years ago, by now,

somebody in government, given the fact

this is a Brexiteer government, should have identified

what the benefits are.

The Brexiteers haven't really formulated a cogent case

as to why walling the UK off from its largest

market on its doorstep will lead to a better economy.

When the government unleashed its Brexit opportunities

document, what was the number one item?

That you were going to have a crown

stamp back on your pint pot in the English pub.

The Vote Leave side presented a very optimistic view

of what the British economy would look like after Brexit,

including a massive series of deregulation, Britain

buccaneering around the world, striking trade deals

around the world.

There have been some trade deals,

but they've mainly been with countries that Britain already

had a trade deal with through the European Union.

Australia really is the only one exception to that.

Signing a free trade agreement with New Zealand or Australia

has ups and downs of the UK economy,

and is probably very, very marginally positive.

But it's nothing like losing a free trade agreement

and losing the frictionless trade you had with your biggest

trading partner that's only 20 miles away across the channel.

We lose 4 per cent of our GDP by Brexit.

We gain 0.08 per cent by the government's own estimate

through this trade deal with Australia.

All the attempts to lay out exactly what a Brexit

dividend looks like have thus far been totally unconvincing

and that's on the trade agreement front,

on the regulatory front, or the deregulatory front.

The best case scenario is that a Brexit dividend

is lots and lots of little changes

that in aggregate add up to something meaningful.

There's no sort of great idea that

is out there at the moment.

When the Brexiters said, oh, Brexit

will unleash Britain's global potential,

that made me very annoyed because we

weren't sitting on our laurels just easily

selling into France.

Everyone was already doing that.

We were already trading with the whole of the rest of the world.

Making things more difficult for us to sell into the EU

did not make anything easier.

Boo.

Brexit.

We have heard Project Fear again and again, on and on it goes,

but that all the aspects of Project Fear

so far have been wrong.

We were promised a punishment budget, that never happened.

We were promised an increase of unemployment by 800,000

by voting to leave, that did not happen.

Remainers did themselves no service

by claiming that immediately after a Brexit vote

that Britain's economy would crash into recession

and millions of people would be unemployed.

I mean, that hasn't happened, and probably

was never going to happen.

The Project Fear tag was very effective

from the Leave campaign and lasts to this day.

I think the trouble is that Brexit is boring, and detailed,

and wonky, it was hard to talk about that wonky detail

around trading arrangements, and customs unions,

and paperwork in a political campaign.

Get Brexit Done, it was one of the most effective election

slogans you've seen.

We didn't even start to dig into those questions

until after the vote was finished.

The type of Brexit we decided to pursue

was economically the most harmful.

There was always a spectrum of economic impact versus ability

to make our own choices around things like regulation.

The European Union is not a superpower in the way

that the United States is a superpower,

but it is a regulatory and trading superpower.

Collectively, it's the world's largest market

and it harmonised all of its rules to allow everybody

to trade more freely.

And it forced other countries and trading

blocs to follow EU rules in many ways.

We can no longer blame European rule makers

for decisions and policies that we don't like or outcomes

that we don't like in our own economy.

With sovereignty comes a degree of ownership.

I think we can conclude, one, that Brexit was

an act of economic self-harm.

Two, that the losers will be the nation as a whole,

but also some of the poorest people,

because ultimately, we are poorer as a nation.

That hurts more vulnerable people more.

Third, I think something from economics we can say

is that we can't run referendums on very

simple economic slogans, and it's

dangerous to try and weaponise economics.

Brexit is a slow puncture.

It's not a car crash.

So that doesn't mean that Brexit creates an unemployment

crisis in the UK, but it may mean

that over time, UK workers find themselves

in less productive jobs and that makes

the economy smaller than it otherwise would have been.

It makes wages lower than they otherwise would have been.

The slow puncture analogy has been right from 2016,

but I think the "mini" Budget is that first sign

that if we push things too far, not only are you going

to begin to hear much more of an audible hiss,

but you might even have a blowout.

It's bordering on disastrous.

I don't think there's any real public awareness of this.

Even if we go and visit my mum for a weekend

and talk to her about the difficulties we face,

she'll go, oh, really?

I thought we had a deal.

Nothing's ever in the news about it.

Nobody else seems to be voicing any concerns, apart from maybe

you on Twitter.

Brexit wasn't all about the economy.

It was about stopping the free movement of people.

It was about repatriating a sense of agency

into the UK economy.

The trouble was the Brexiteers and those

who sold it were not honest about the trade-offs

and the costs of that, which actually, economically,

outweighed the benefits.

It is legitimate to have a discussion

about national sovereignty and taking back control.

You could have had that argument,

but you have to accept that there

will be some economic impact.

The trouble was Boris Johnson famously

adopted a cakist approach, to have your cake and eat it.

Cakism, or cherry-picking, as Michel Barnier used to call it,

this idea that you could retain all the access you wanted

to the EU single market and still be

free to go off on what you might call your buccaneering Brexit.

It was that Cakism that was slowly but surely exploded

by the process of negotiating with the EU.

And we're still paying the price of that, really,

because people have never been prepared to accept or identify

the trade-offs and then start talking

about what you can do about it.