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The United Kingdom marks three years of having officially withdrawn from the European Union. The withdrawal promised autonomy, prosperity and a boost to the country’s economy, but a miscalculation has hindered those promises. The Covid-19 pandemic, the energy crisis unleashed by the Russian invasion of Ukraine and an expected free trade agreement with the US that did not happen, among other things, have made it difficult to accurately calculate the impact that Brexit has left in the UK economy.
The economy is one of the aspects that the United Kingdom has suffered the most after leaving the European Union. The complaint of many Britons is that the economic benefits that Brexit promised have not yet been seen.
In 2020, Prime Minister Boris Johnson promised to unleash the country’s economic potential, but to this day the opposite is true: various indicators are underperforming other economies.
The current situation in the United Kingdom is summed up in a crisis due to the highest annual inflation in 40 years, 10.5%. In addition, there is a lack of workers in many areas such as health and social care, which many sectors on strike support, such as railway workers, nurses, ambulance service employees, teachers, among others.
Other think tanks and independent organizations reveal that this economy would have grown 5.5% less in 2022 due to the exit from the European Union, while 77% of companies admit that Brexit did not help them expand their business and 44% of them report difficulties for staff visas.
Another sector affected was the labor sector, since the exit from the EU also meant changes in the rules on the free movement of workers. A study shows that there are 330,000 fewer workers in the UK as a result of Brexit. Although they are only 1% of the total workforce, this affects sectors such as transport, hospitality and retail.
With the UK exiting the single market and the Customs Union in 2021, companies trading with the EU are faced with new rules, new procedures and new checks on some goods. At first there was a decline in British exports to the European Union, but once initial problems were resolved, trade volumes returned to pre-pandemic levels, according to official figures.
But trade could have grown more had it not been for Brexit, according to analysts. The British Chamber of Commerce recently surveyed 500 businesses and more than half said they were still grappling with the new system.
If you look at the UK’s trade with the rest of the world, it has generally declined relative to the size of the UK economy. After the pandemic, trade did not recover as quickly as in other large economies.
After Brexit, 71 trade agreements were also signed, but most are just repetitions of the agreements the United Kingdom had when it was part of the European Union. Other analysts say that investment has stalled since the referendum, as companies remain wary.
On June 23, 2016, the referendum took place in which 17.4 million Britons voted in favor of leaving the European Union, that is, 51.9% of the population. 16.1 million people voted to remain in the community bloc, which represents 48.1% of the votes. Three years of intense negotiations sealed the official departure from the country that took place on January 31, 2020, ending a 47-year relationship between London and Brussels.
What balance does Brexit leave three years later? Has it been convenient for the UK? What advantages did it bring? How did it impact the European Union? In this edition of El Debate we take stock of the three years of Brexit. We broached the topic with the help of our guests:
– Consuelo Thiers Huerta, teacher and researcher at the Institut d’Estudis Internacionals Barcelona (IBEI) and doctor in international relations from the University of Edinburgh.
– Dámaso Morales Ramírez, coordinator of the Center for European Studies of the Faculty of Political Sciences of the Autonomous University of Mexico.
