The eye-watering cost of the UK’s split with the European Union has been laid bare by new figures released by the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan.
Economists and analysts at the ironically named Cambridge Econometrics have modelled how the UK’s economy would have acted were it still in the European Union.
It shows the divorce with the EU has cost the UK £140 billion so far, as well as leading to lower employment, strong negative impacts on investment, imports falling more than exports, and a growing gap between London and the rest of the UK.
The report analysed the gross value added – GVA – which is a measure of how much value is added by an area through the production of goods and the actions of services.
Cambridge Econometrics says it found UK GVA was £2,207 billion in 2023 under current circumstances, and will be £2,771 billion by 2035.
But without Brexit, the organisation states the UK would have had a GVA of £2,347 billion in 2023, and it would have reached £3,082 billion by 2035.
This equates to GVA being 6 per cent lower in 2023 than it would have been without Brexit, and 10.1 per cent lower in 2035.
The London mayor says that it is “now obvious that Brexit isn’t working” – blaming the “hard-line Brexit we’ve ended up with”.
He added: “The cost of Brexit crisis can only be solved if we take a mature approach and if we are open to improving our trading arrangements with our European neighbours.
“I agree with the shadow foreign secretary [David Lammy], who has said we urgently need to build a closer relationship with the EU.”
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