Three years after leaving the EU, on January 31, 2020, a majority of Britons are talking in the polls about being wrong. As a result, for the Conservatives at the helm of the country, who were in favour of Brexit at the time, the pressure to turn Brexit into a success story is mounting even further.
While the Government of Rishi Sunak attributes the inability of the British economy to get back on its feet to the pandemic and the war in Ukraine, many economists are referring to the impact of Brexit, which cut Britain out of the European single market.
“Leaving the EU has certainly been a drag on the UK economy, the uncertainty created has led to a contraction in investment, and new barriers to international trade have made it difficult for UK businesses and the EU to trade,” said Thomas Sampson from the London School of Economics: “overall Brexit is responsible for the lower growth rates of the UK economy. So the UK is currently poorer because of Brexit.”
Just 33% of Britons favour Brexit
There have never been as few supporters of Brexit as there are today, a YouGov poll published in November shows. Less than a third of Britons believe leaving was the right decision, while at the same time one in five Brexit supporters have changed their minds.
Public financial services estimate that leaving the EU would shrink the British economy by 4% in the long term. But neither prime minister Rishi Sunak’s Conservative government nor the opposition Labour Party are planning a change of course. Instead they insist on promising to make Brexit pay off.
At the same time, however, many British companies are turning their backs on the European market in search of new opportunities outside the EU, since with them trade relations are easier and with less bureaucracy.
Nimisa Raja, founder of NIM’s Fruit & Veg Crisps, said: “three years later, no problem has been solved. We are no longer focusing on exports to the EU, we have shifted our interest to non-EU markets because of the many problems. This decision is facilitated by the new trade agreements that Britain has signed. It is easier for us to deal with the difficulties of a new deal than to insist on trade relations with the EU.”
