BREXIT’S COST US TENS OF BILLIONS
2% drop amid global boom
BREXIT has cost Britain tens of billions of pounds before we even leave the EU, the chief of the Bank of England has revealed.
The UK economy will be 2% lower this year than it would have been if the country had voted to stay in the EU, said Governor Mark Carney.
We have been left behind amid an economic boom elsewhere, he added – with UK growth the lowest in the G7 group of industrialised countries.
“The world economy is accelerating and we haven’t seen that yet,” Mr Carney said from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “What is happening in the UK is effectively the Brexit effect in the short term.
“We said prior to the referendum if there was a vote in favour of leaving, as there was, that the pound would do down sharply – it did; we expected the economy to slow – it has; we expected inflation to rise.”
He added: “What it works out to is tens of billions of pounds lower economic activity.”
But once more is known about our post-Brexit relationship with the EU there could be a “conscious recoupling” with world economies, he said – borrowing the phrase from the “conscious uncoupling” of Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin.
Lib Dem Brexit spokesman Tom Brake, of the Open Britain campaign, said: “The Brexit Effect is biting.
“As costs spiral and as the promises made by Leave campaigners look increasingly undeliverable, everyone has the right to keep an open mind about whether Brexit is really the right path for the country.”