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Covid pandemic masks Brexit impact on UK economy
Economists say new checks and rules have hurt trade but six months on the full scale of the damage is still uncertain
World Economy News
2 Jul 2021 • 4 min read
More than five years after the EU referendum, Britain remains as divided as ever on the question of the UK’s membership of the bloc.
However, economists from both sides of the argument are in agreement on one thing new rules and regulations ushered in by Britain’s new relationship with Brussels have caused damage to the UK’s economy, hitting trade and deepening labour shortages.
The Office for National Statistics finds similarly that total EU-UK trade has shrunk by 20 per cent. And a model constructed by John Springford of the Centre for European Reform, a think-tank with offices in both London and Brussels, concludes that goods trade is 11 per cent lower than it would otherwise have been, on top of an earlier 10 per cent fall since the referendum. Such numbers suggest that what was once dismissed as project fear is now project fact. A survey by consultants at Ernst & Young found that 75 per cent of firms had experienced business disruption from Brexit. Small firms found adjusting particularly hard because the EU-UK trade deal was struck just a week before exit, meaning there was no transition period. Services have been particularly hard hit.
The latest research shows that Brexit has shrunk British service exports by more than 110 billion pounds in four years, highlighting the far-reaching trade