It should be obvious to most people that Brexit is not the cause of this country’s woes and, indeed, that binding ourselves again to a fading 1950s pipe dream is liable to make things worse. GDP growth since 2015 in the G7 shows the following:
* 🇺🇸 USA: ~121 (Up 21%)
* 🇨🇦 Canada: ~116 (Up 16%)
* 🇫🇷 France: ~110 (Up 10%)
* 🇬🇧 UK: ~109 (Up 9%)
* 🇮🇹 Italy: ~106 (Up 6%)
* 🇩🇪 Germany: ~106 (Up 6%)
* 🇯🇵 Japan: ~104 (Up 4%)
We did worse during Covid than any of the others but rebounded faster than any G7 European country and Japan. The USA and Canada are doing best largely because they do not endure idiotically high energy prices.
In 2024, EU growth was 1.1 per cent, so was Britain’s. Last year, the EU average was 1.5, ours was 1.3 or 1.4 according to the Office for National Statistics. Admittedly that’s well below the 9 per cent recorded by the Cook Islands but above France, Germany, Italy, Austria or Canada.
The trouble with this endless argument about Brexit is that it is possible to find statistics to support both sides of the divide and that allows everyone emotionally invested in their abhorrence of the majority vote to get all aeriated about made-up numbers when the truth is they are all unreliable and untrustworthy. Does anyone seriously trust the numbers we get from Eurostat, the OECD, the World Bank, the IMF, even the ONS let alone the Treasury or the OBR?
Which means we are reduced to questions like getting through passport control with more difficulty or worrying about immigration and the absence of cheap Polish plumbers.
In the great scheme of things, Brexit is neither here nor there. We are at the mercy of Governments of limited competence and world events over which we have no control or even influence.
If the country is broken, don’t blame Brexit, blame the people trying to run it (and those who tried and failed).
https://www.worldometers.info/gdp/gdp-by-country/
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