NEWS · 16 October 2024
"I think people have moved on [from Brexit]... the impact on economic growth has come to pass and that is a fact of life we have to deal with."
– Wes Streeting, secretary of state for health (source)
Wes Streeting has just given the game away. He admits that Brexit means lower growth – a worse economy for us all – but says the government's strategy is... live with it.
Streeting is telling us to live with this enormous drag on the economy - and its major role in the cost of living crisis. (Today's fall in inflation is likely temporary.) Still, it is significant that the minister was even asked this question about the single market.
The media are finally noticing that £100 billion-a-year cost of Brexit is so massive that basically anything else a government does economically is a drop in the ocean by comparison.
More and more people are realising that we don't have to live with a wrecked economy. We can get it moving again by getting rid of Brexit.
The summit of their ambitions?
That brings us to the government's investment summit, which saw corporate CEOs from around the world gather in Britain this week.
As Stella Creasy, a more sensible Labour MP and chair of Labour Movement for Europe, pointed out: "There’s an elephant in the room at Keir Starmer’s big investment summit: Brexit".
Just look at the effects of Brexit on foreign direct investment – the type of investment the summit was about. The UK Trade Policy Observatory found a 16-20% fall-off in investment after the 2016 referendum. In 2021, the year the Brexit transition period ended, investment into the UK was -£52 billion – the minus sign there means that £52 billion more was pulled out of the UK than was put in.
The new government is trying to turn this around, but it has a mountain to climb. If the UK announced a plan to rejoin the EU, and then held an investment summit, the outcome would be off the charts.
Starmer used the summit to announce a plan to cut "red tape" – but we don't need more deregulation. The red tape that is holding back trade has all been caused by Brexit, with its proliferation of customs documents, goods inspections, haulage restrictions and all the rest.
The government is right to 'go for growth', but thanks to Brexit, it's doing it with both hands tied behind its back. Sooner or later, something's got to give.
