Brexit costs hit £500m every week
UK’s economy down by 2.5%
BREXIT is already costing the public purse £500 million ($NZ984 million) a week, new research has found — a stark contrast to the £350 million ‘‘dividend’’ promised by the Leave campaign. The Centre for European Reform’s analysis also suggests the Government’s austerity drive would be on the way to completion had Britain voted to stay in the European Union.
It shows that the UK economy is already 2.5% smaller than it would have been had Remain won the referendum. Public finances have been dented by £26 billion a year, more than half of the defence budget. This translates to a penalty of £500 million a week, a figure that is growing.
The stark finding came as the Tory conference began yesterday in Birmingham, with Theresa May’s premiership under severe strain. The prime minister faces competing proposals from cabinet ministers over how she should resolve the Brexit impasse with the EU.
The febrile conference coincides with explosive claims that the boss of one UKbased carmaker has been flown by private jet to meet French President Emmanuel Macron, in an attempt to persuade the company to move manufacturing to France after Brexit.
Confederation of British Industry directorgeneral Carolyn Fairbairn said this development was a sign of the economic damage Britain faced from the wrong Brexit deal.
While some cabinet ministers are pushing for a loose trade deal, support is growing in May’s ministerial team and on her backbenches for a deal under which Britain would stay closely tied to the EU for a time.
May is being warned that for some businesses a Canadastyle deal is little better than crashing out of the EU with no agreement in place. Fairbairn said companies were acting to minimise the impact of trade friction at Britain’s borders.
‘‘Among car manufacturers, we have heard of one CEO who has been flown out on private jets to meet Macron about relocating his entire business,’’ she said.
‘‘You have got tens of millions being spent by firms on preparing for friction at borders.’’
A YouGov poll of 1000 entrepreneurs and chief executives, carried out by the People’s Vote for another referendum, suggested the Tories risked denting their probusiness reputation over the handling of the Brexit talks. Almost threequarters (73%) believed Britain was heading for a bad deal.
Meanwhile, Britain’s wealthiest funder of independent scientific research, the Wellcome Trust, says it is losing patience with the Government. Writing in The Observer, the trust’s director said in common with industry and universities, his organisation — which spends more than £1 billion a year on medical research — was becoming increasingly nervous about Brexit problems.
❛ Among car manufacturers, we have heard of one CEO who has been flown out on private jets to meet Macron about relocating his entire business