The overall cost of Britain’s break from Europe is expected to be an astronomical £220 billion over four years, dwarfing the NHS budget which was a focal part of the ‘Leave’ campaign.
New forecasts from the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) show that government debt is to hit £1.945 trillion in five years, with experts attributing the £220 billion growth to the direct results of Brexit.
A recent report by ITV’s Robert Peston explained: “£78 billion of that is due to the expected post-referendum slowdown in the economy, £16 billion is from government spending and tax decisions, and most of the rest is the result of measures taken by the Bank of England in August to avert recession…
“So it’s reasonable to characterise that £220 billion increase in the national debt as the financial cost of Brexit.”
Given that protecting the UK’s interests was a key promise of the Leave campaign, a new thread has looked at comparing key domestic costs to the cost of leaving Europe.
The thread revealed that compared to the annual NHS budget (£116.4 billion), the annual cost of the UK’s armed forces (£37.4 billion) and the official projected cost of HS2 (£56 billion), Brexit is likely to dwarf key national expenditure, and is perhaps even likely to lead to more years of austerity in a country already crippled by cuts.
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