Benefits of Brexit for Britain

[EACLucifer]

However I do expect people with strong opinions to be able to back up what they're saying in the face of evidence to the contrary.

Why? You never do.

Meanwhile, I'll just leave this here.

[Bird on a Fire]

However I do expect people with strong opinions to be able to back up what they're saying in the face of evidence to the contrary.

Why? You never do.

Meanwhile, I'll just leave this here.

Looks like strong growth for EU tax havens and poor countries, weaker growth for rich EU countries with the UK especially bad.

It's a shame Switzerland isn't included on that list, but according to the top google result it's also expected to see GDP shrinking https://www.statista.com/statistics/111 ... itzerland/ while their own govt. reckons growth of 1.1% https://www.seco.admin.ch/seco/en/home/ ... nosen.html which would seemingly put it close to Bulgaria.

Would be useful to have a few other non-EU European countries included before ascribing any effects to Brexit specifically rather than just the UK having an totally incompetent government since 2019 (and a pretty incompetent one since 2010). A decade of austerity will also have f.cked growth.

[Woodchopper]

Would be useful to have a few other non-EU European countries included before ascribing any effects to Brexit specifically rather than just the UK having an totally incompetent government since 2019 (and a pretty incompetent one since 2010). A decade of austerity will also have f.cked growth.

Norway predicts 1.7% growth in 2023 in the onshore (eg non-hydrocarbon) economy, and Iceland 2.9%.

I'm not sure how relevant the others would be.

[Bird on a Fire]

Would be useful to have a few other non-EU European countries included before ascribing any effects to Brexit specifically rather than just the UK having an totally incompetent government since 2019 (and a pretty incompetent one since 2010). A decade of austerity will also have f.cked growth.

Norway predicts 1.7% growth in 2023 in the onshore (eg non-hydrocarbon) economy, and Iceland 2.9%.

I'm not sure how relevant the others would be.

Interesting, thanks.

So being outside the EU seems ok for rich European countries in general (taking the official Swiss forecast) - possibly better than being inside, given the lacklustre predictions for Germany and France.

The issue for the UK could partly be the manner of leaving and the hardness of brexit, and/or general Tory shitbaggery. I speculate pointlessly that the UK might not be looking anywhere like as bad with a soft brexit (ie staying in SM) and without the Truss/Kwarteng moneypocalypse.

Not really seeing any benefits, yet, are we? The UK seems to be still in the "broken husk" phase of a messy breakup, with no sense of what to do now.

[plodder]

GDP growth is relative to prior years, or a rolling average, or something (it doesn’t say which of course is entirely typical of clickbait copypasta) so we need to know that. There’s also a cyclical thing where for some reason the UK has traditionally been a bit out of sync with the EU in terms of growth and contraction, IIRC it’s roughly every 8 years and we’re typically growing while they’re contracting etc. I’m no fan of brexit but this graph doesn’t tell us anything.

[plodder]

…notwithstanding the complaints people have about gdp as a metric in any case…

[dyqik]

GDP growth is relative to prior years, or a rolling average, or something (it doesn’t say which of course is entirely typical of clickbait copypasta) so we need to know that. There’s also a cyclical thing where for some reason the UK has traditionally been a bit out of sync with the EU in terms of growth and contraction, IIRC it’s roughly every 8 years and we’re typically growing while they’re contracting etc. I’m no fan of brexit but this graph doesn’t tell us anything.

It's fairly easy to do cumulative GDP charts to eliminate that particular effect. e.g.

[plodder]

Clearly a very sharp downturn there due to brexit. Useful, thanks.

[dyqik]

Clearly a very sharp downturn there due to brexit. Useful, thanks.

Don't be silly. You can clearly see that there's only one data point after 2009, in 2019, before Brexit fully happened. I gave this plot as an example of the kind of plot that would be convincing.

If you were actually interested in backing up your claims, you'd use this plot as a hint to tell you what kind of data you should be finding.

[Bird on a Fire]

I'm not sure any one plot is going to be very convincing in isolation anyway.

What is pretty clear is that the UK's economy isn't going very well, and nothing enormously significant - economic or otherwise - seems to have happened that definitely couldn't have happened without Brexit. A possible exception was the early months of the vaccine rollout when the UK was briefly ahead of the EU, which could but perhaps would not have occurred.

AFAICT the possible explanations are:
a) the going-badly has brexit as a contributory factor
b) brexit is irrelevant as the UK would've been doing just as badly
c) the UK would be doing even worse than this within the EU
d) it's going very well actually but you're using the wrong metrics.

The only way to tease apart a-c is by making lots of different comparisons between various different groupings of countries, to try to see past the various ways in which the UK is a bit weird anyway.

IMHO d is more interesting, but I haven't seen many serious people make that argument. If the UK gets decent agricultural and/or fisheries reform I personally will make the case, but that's looking less likely the longer the Tories are in power.

[EACLucifer]

Brexit didn't actually occur until mere months before the pandemic hit, so most of the effects will show up as differences from other countries in the recovery. Our recovery is poorer than the other countries in the bloc we left. As for the British government during this period being bad, well yes, it was, but other countries have bad governments too sometimes.

[Bird on a Fire]

Brexit didn't actually occur until mere months before the pandemic hit, so most of the effects will show up as differences from other countries in the recovery. Our recovery is poorer than the other countries in the bloc we left. As for the British government during this period being bad, well yes, it was, but other countries have bad governments too sometimes.

This is all true. Personally I think it's pretty likely that things are worse than they would've been otherwise, because brexit has been economically disruptive at the worst possible time without seeming to bring any tangible benefits to offset them.

It's like watching a clown car driving along with bits falling off, a succession of evil clowns at the wheel, and at some point it turned down a bumpier road than the other vehicles. Was the choice of road a factor? Probably, certainly can't have helped, and of course the choice of road was Pennywise's fault to begin with.

[jimbob]

There is this graph about exports

https://www.ft.com/content/021c629d-585 ... 5f0eb65a35

Screenshot_20221118-200849.png (467.02 KiB) Viewed 5301 times

[plodder]

Clearly a very sharp downturn there due to brexit. Useful, thanks.

Don't be silly. You can clearly see that there's only one data point after 2009, in 2019, before Brexit fully happened. I gave this plot as an example of the kind of plot that would be convincing.

If you were actually interested in backing up your claims, you'd use this plot as a hint to tell you what kind of data you should be finding.

Haha amazing

[plodder]

My “claim” is that all the bitching about brexit over the past few months doesn’t yet seem to be supported by the data (this being in response to lazy copypasta). So, you know, silly etc.

[dyqik]

My “claim” is that all the bitching about brexit over the past few months doesn’t yet seem to be supported by the data (this being in response to lazy copypasta). So, you know, silly etc.

Have you done any due diligence to look for actual data that people might be looking at? Or are you just assuming that no one has looked at any more data than you have?

[Bird on a Fire]

My “claim” is that all the bitching about brexit over the past few months doesn’t yet seem to be supported by the data (this being in response to lazy copypasta). So, you know, silly etc.

Have you done any due diligence to look for actual data that people might be looking at? Or are you just assuming that no one has looked at any more data than you have?

I think plodder is responding purely to what's being posted here.

[jimbob]

My “claim” is that all the bitching about brexit over the past few months doesn’t yet seem to be supported by the data (this being in response to lazy copypasta). So, you know, silly etc.

The export data suggests otherwise

[plodder]

My “claim” is that all the bitching about brexit over the past few months doesn’t yet seem to be supported by the data (this being in response to lazy copypasta). So, you know, silly etc.

Have you done any due diligence to look for actual data that people might be looking at? Or are you just assuming that no one has looked at any more data than you have?

I think plodder is responding purely to what's being posted here.

yes, it's called a conversation, or it would be if more people actually read and responded.

[dyqik]

Have you done any due diligence to look for actual data that people might be looking at? Or are you just assuming that no one has looked at any more data than you have?

I think plodder is responding purely to what's being posted here.

yes, it's called a conversation, or it would be if more people actually read and responded.

A conversation needs two participants.

[plodder]

My “claim” is that all the bitching about brexit over the past few months doesn’t yet seem to be supported by the data (this being in response to lazy copypasta). So, you know, silly etc.

The export data suggests otherwise

feel free to link to it. This current "plodder is trolling" bit is in response to a guardian article which people here have poured scorn on without engaging with it. I've found the primary report which the article was based on which again no-one has engaged with but it must be wrong because <look over there>. All I'm seeing are the usual confirmation biases and other evidence-free b.llsh.t that the old place used to be hot on calling out back in the day, but which here seems to be part of a nodding consensus of increasingly flabby received wisdom.

[jimbob]

My “claim” is that all the bitching about brexit over the past few months doesn’t yet seem to be supported by the data (this being in response to lazy copypasta). So, you know, silly etc.

The export data suggests otherwise

feel free to link to it. This current "plodder is trolling" bit is in response to a guardian article which people here have poured scorn on without engaging with it. I've found the primary report which the article was based on which again no-one has engaged with but it must be wrong because <look over there>. All I'm seeing are the usual confirmation biases and other evidence-free b.llsh.t that the old place used to be hot on calling out back in the day, but which here seems to be part of a nodding consensus of increasingly flabby received wisdom.

There is this graph about exports

https://www.ft.com/content/021c629d-585 ... 5f0eb65a35

Screenshot_20221118-200849.png

[Bird on a Fire]

Have you done any due diligence to look for actual data that people might be looking at? Or are you just assuming that no one has looked at any more data than you have?

I think plodder is responding purely to what's being posted here.

yes, it's called a conversation, or it would be if more people actually read and responded.

Sometimes I get the feeling that people here are having a meta-conversation about stuff they've read elsewhere, assuming a kind of collective understanding.

[plodder]

The export data suggests otherwise

feel free to link to it. This current "plodder is trolling" bit is in response to a guardian article which people here have poured scorn on without engaging with it. I've found the primary report which the article was based on which again no-one has engaged with but it must be wrong because <look over there>. All I'm seeing are the usual confirmation biases and other evidence-free b.llsh.t that the old place used to be hot on calling out back in the day, but which here seems to be part of a nodding consensus of increasingly flabby received wisdom.

There is this graph about exports

https://www.ft.com/content/021c629d-585 ... 5f0eb65a35

Screenshot_20221118-200849.png

Paywalled

[jimbob]

feel free to link to it. This current "plodder is trolling" bit is in response to a guardian article which people here have poured scorn on without engaging with it. I've found the primary report which the article was based on which again no-one has engaged with but it must be wrong because <look over there>. All I'm seeing are the usual confirmation biases and other evidence-free b.llsh.t that the old place used to be hot on calling out back in the day, but which here seems to be part of a nodding consensus of increasingly flabby received wisdom.

There is this graph about exports

https://www.ft.com/content/021c629d-585 ... 5f0eb65a35

Screenshot_20221118-200849.png

Paywalled

https://obr.uk/box/the-latest-evidence- ... -uk-trade/

Also Chart 1