Three years later his exit from the European Union, Britannia it has not yet benefited from what this process was supposed to bring to its economy. In many areas, including trade and investment, it lags behind its competitors. Britain left the EU. January 31, 2020, although it remained part of the single market and the customs union for another 11 months.

On that day, then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that the country could finally reach its full potential and that he hoped its confidence would grow month by month. However, the opposite has so far been the case: a number of indicators have lagged behind other countries. Polls show that Britons who regret leaving the EU are increasingly outnumbering those who don’t.

A study released on Monday by news site UnHerd found that the trend was present in 629 of the 632 counties analyzed. For its part, the current government, led by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, a supporter of the British exit, claims that the country is prospering due to new freedoms.

Last week, Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt cast doubt on all talk of a recession, pointing out that the UK, which is not part of the EU, offers a brighter future with the possibility of taking action to attract investment in areas such as the green economy and technology.

Many economists argue that leaving the EU is not the only cause of Britain’s troubles, as the country has been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic and rising gas prices following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. However, this is a factor that may explain the recent poor performance. “It was more than a slow march. It was a serious downturn in economic performance,” said John Springford, deputy director of the think tank Center for European Reform. “If you create barriers to trade, investment and immigration with your biggest trading partner (EU), then you hit trade, investment and GDP hard,” he said, delivering a series of gloomy statements. economic data. The UK was the only advanced G7 economy that had yet to recover to its pre-pandemic size at the end of 2019 at the end of September 2022.

On Tuesday, the International Monetary Fund said it expects the UK economy to contract by 0.6% this year, in contrast to growth forecasts for the rest of the G7. Springford has calculated that Brexit reduced UK output compared to what it would have been without leaving the EU by around 5.5% by mid-2022, based on a ‘twin’ model in which an algorithm selects countries whose economic performance is close. to those in the UK. while within the EU

Finally, the government’s own forecasting agency, the Financial Responsibility Office and the Bank of England also say there is a long-term net cost to leaving the EU, although some economists disagree.