Brexit: The Promise That Broke Britain

Brexit's economic face plan, the promise that broke Britain. For American users who may not remember the details, Brexit was the United Kingdom's 2016 referendum to leave the European Union. Supporters promised more sovereignty, fewer immigrants, better trade deals and a booming economy. Opponents warned it would weaken Britain economically. Now, nearly a decade later, the verdict is overwhelming. According to the Telegraph's reporting on a major new study from the National Bureau of Economic Research, Brexit has been an unmitigated economic failure. The study finds that the UK economy is 6 to 8% smaller than it would have been without Brexit. Investment is down as much as 18%, productivity has slipped, and businesses say the uncertainty and red tape have been crippling. Brexit didn't slash immigration, it didn't spark an economic renaissance. And the new trade deals barely moved the needle. Instead, Britain got slower growth, higher taxes, weaker investment, and years of political chaos. Even many of Brexit's biggest champions now admit it has failed to deliver. Okay, what's the real message here in 2016? The supporters of Brexit said, this is going to be great for us. We'll thrive on our own, get rid of the immigrants, and grow even faster with our own trade deals. Now, it's been nine years and guess what? None of that has happened. The economy has shrunk by 6 to 8% of what it would have been. Brexit had never happened. Let's dig a little bit deeper here, because folks, I often get it wrong. I didn't predict that Brexit would not pass, but I did predict this would not be a good thing. Being a part of the European Union was a pretty sweet deal for Great Britain. Plus they got to keep their own currency, so they always had that going on. This was really just sort of a temper tantrum. This was a lot of politicians pandering to resentment and hatred. Now, I guess you could make the case it worked out for some people. There are some people who, let's say, were about to retire on a fixed income and simply resent investment bankers in London who were making two, three million dollars a year, things were great for them. And if you were a retired postal worker, for example, or in a retired sheep herder living in a rural areas, you resent these people getting richer and richer and richer. And by voting for Brexit, you could say, well, I'll stick it to them. I guess if that's your goal, you did so. But very few people were willing to admit it like that. People were saying, this will be Good for our country as a whole. And there's simply zero economic analysis from any credible source, left, right, center, that Brexit has created a bigger pie for the entire economy of the United Kingdom. Let's take a look at some of the specific facts. Okay. The NBER estimates Brexit cut United Kingdom gross domestic product by 6 to 8%. Investment fell 12 to 18% after Brexit. Productivity dropped 3 to 4%. According to one study. UK economic growth since 2016 lags. France. France now here in America, everyone think, oh, France, they don't actually work there. They just sit around, sip coffee and read poetry and quote Jean Paul Sartre and eat croissant all day. That's the perception, an erroneous perception, but that's the perception a lot of people in America have about France. And kind of the perception some of the people who voted for Brexit in Great Britain had. And yet their economic growth is lower than France's. That's got to be embarrassing. Trade intensity, the United Kingdom connection to global markets fell sharply. Businesses cite elevated uncertainty as a major long term cost of Brexit. A lot of time has had to be wasted. Managers had to learn all new systems, all new rules, all the ways that did work selling their products and services to Europe. All of that went out the window. Sources were misallocated across the economy during the years long Brexit breakout process. So a lot of extra transition costs. There was tons and tons of paperwork just helping people get out of this. Here's the interesting thing that's surprising, and I'm not an expert on this, but immigration didn't fall. In fact, legal immigration reached record high because the way it was before, when they were part of the European Union, you could kind of float and once you're in Europe and you could kind of float in and out through all the borders. And that's part of what upset people so much. But immigration actually went up. So that's, that's the bizarre thing going on here. The Office for Budget Responsibility says Brexit will permanently reduce the United Kingdom's productivity. Smaller businesses got hit hard. They have higher shipping cost, longer delivery times. Politically, Brexit triggered years of paralysis across three different governments. So it's not like it created a lot of harmony. And now the UK now has one of the highest tax burdens in modern history, partly to offset lost growth. So if you voted for Brexit, well, congratulations. I don't think if you're an honest person, you can really say it helped anything whatsoever in this case, I hate to say I told you so, but the people who are anti Brexit who were warning about this can rightfully, and it's not about being glib, can rightfully say, I told you so. Let's take a look at your comments. Again. It's a beautiful Sunday. I'm recording this live. It is the last day of November. December starts tomorrow. We are coming to you Live Sunday on November 30, 2025. Let's take a look at comments. Kate Hamill says you are on board with Larry Ellison. So I think you're referring to our first segment where I talked about I actually like security cameras and police cameras in public, public surveillance, because it so dramatically reduces lower crime. I would imagine Larry Ellison is in favor of that. I am very much opposed to many, many things Larry Ellison does. So again, let's be careful. About someone favors one particular policy, the tendency is to say, well, that's a policy I don't like. Therefore they must be bad. They must be completely on the team of people I don't like. I think Larry Ellison needs restraint. I'm certainly not in favor of him getting sweetheart deals from this administration buying companies. I'm not in favor of him benefiting from essentially throwing all antitrust regulation out the window. And I've been a pretty persistent critic of him and his son and what they're trying to do to the media landscape. So, Kate, let's not extrapolate from one issue to another. Kate also says it is bad just control with police get rid of the attorney general and judges. So the attorney general in the United States is out of control. But I don't think it's because of surveillance technology. The Attorney General of the United States is out of control because she doesn't view herself as the attorney general. She views herself as the personal attorney of the head of a mob outfit, Donald Trump. So if he says Comey's an enemy, find dirt and terrorize him, that's what she does. But that's not because of surveillance technology. That's something completely different. P.S. bernier, 22, says, but then you have judges that let these people out who have done the crime. Okay, that's a separate issue. And you could, you could make the case. If someone's a violent criminal, even the time they're in prison waiting for trial and time served is at least another six months. They're not committing violent crime. So honest people can debate about what the proper length of time is for being convicted of a crime. We'll have that debate Another day. But. But P.S. bernier, what I'm troubled by, and I don't want to assume you, the people who like to make that argument, are never honest in admitting violent crime has gone way, way down in cities run by Democrats compared to rural areas run by Republicans. And if you don't admit that fact, in my view, you're not. You're simply not being an honest participant in the debate here. Okay, not laram says yes, some people just believe whatever Fox says. Yeah, some people believe whatever Al Sharpton said. I remember a time when he was Tawana Brawley's spokesperson and he just said that a bunch of men, I think some of them were police officers, attacked this. It was all made up. And some people believed him. So, yeah, there can be examples across the spectrum of demagogues who just make up stuff and they have followers who believe them. I don't want you believing everything I say, but I do want you to believe me when I'm sincere, telling you I'm not trying to spin you one way or the other. I, as I've often done on this show, brought forth facts about a public issue of public controversy, dissected the various messages going on. And sometimes that makes one party look bad, sometimes it makes that same party look good. Sometimes it makes another party and another set of politicians look bad or good. Judge me based on my arguments and rationale. That's all I ask for. Don't blindly support me. Don't just say, well, T.J. said it. I can't possibly have another viewpoint. No, the world is complex. There's a lot of grays in the world. We try to cover the nuances right here. So thank you so much. I do appreciate that. Not laram. Oh, we covered that one. And Obby says Texas should be in the playoffs. Okay, not sure exactly what league, what sport you're talking about. And we do occasionally cover sports controversies here, as we did just yesterday, talking about the. The absolute obscenity of public officials, that is football coaches at public universities getting paid $54 million to not work for the next six years. Another pet peeve of mine. And again, another issue of how people are tremendous hypocrites in both parties. But in that case, especially among Republicans, I find, who think that it's so evil that children get just enough food through SNAP benefits to not starve to death, and yet think it's perfectly fine for a football coach at a public university who gets public funds to get paid $10 million a year. That, to me is an absolute unmitigated obscenity and is the exact opposite of conservative fiscal prudence.