A vote is binding. The results of an election can be without major consequences – this is often the case and voters are upset about it. They can also lead a country into a dead end from which it is difficult to extricate itself. Thus, Brexit, voted in 2016, was made effective in January 2020. Four years of hindsight, facts, statistics, polls which allow us to affirm a singularity in this historic decision of the British people: it had no , for the United Kingdom, absolutely no identifiable positive effect. From the point of view of British interest, Brexit is a total failure. It is, moreover, a lasting failure because, unlike most elections and referendums, it has no hope of return, at least within a reasonable time horizon.
Brexit is first and foremost an economic failure. A note published by the Directorate General of the Treasury last April attests to this and highlights the three channels through which the United Kingdom’s exit from the EU affected activity. First, Brexit has led to a dramatic contraction in investment by UK businesses. At the end of 2023, the latter was 20% lower than it would have been if it had continued its dynamic before the 2016 referendum, which was very buoyant – almost 6% per year. This underinvestment concerns all branches, with the exception of construction. By slowing down the modernization of business capital, it has had an effect on the country’s productivity and growth.
Second, Brexit has affected trade with the EU, particularly in services. If tourism between the island and the continent has regained its former intensity, like the trade in manufactured products, this is not the case for financial activities. Brexit has, from this point of view, lastingly penalized the London market to the benefit of cities like Dublin, Paris and Amsterdam.
An opposite effect on migration policy
Third, Brexit has increased tensions in the British labor market. According to the Treasury, the number of jobs held by Europeans across the Channel has stagnated since the 2016 referendum. The jobs deficit for the United Kingdom amounts to 200,000. This problem is accentuated by the exit from the labor market of more than 300,000 seniors since the pandemic. The country is fighting these shortages by opening up more to non-European immigrants, exactly the opposite of what the Brexiters voted for. Numerous polls had shown, in fact, that one of the main reasons for voting to leave the EU was to take control of the country’s migration policy, which should lead to a halt to immigration. Missed. In June 2023, non-European immigration affected 700,000 people, a record.
On this subject, as on the others, Brexit activists have sold their fellow citizens a legal sovereignty based on theoretical nationalist principles, and not a de facto sovereignty based on the reality of economic life. The result of these three poor performances – investment, exchange of services, labor shortage – is already tangible. According to the consultancy firm Accuracy, GDP, compared to a base of 100 in June 2016, stands in the first quarter of 2024 at 108.3 in the United Kingdom, 110.5 in the euro zone – although growth is slow. brilliant – and 119.4 in the United States.
Awareness in public opinion
The eyes of the monarchy have been opened for eight years. A poll carried out by Ipsos and recently published by Accuracy shows that only 13% of Britons consider Brexit to have been a success. They are only 9% among 35-54 year olds and 5% among 18-34 year olds. There is little doubt that this resentment will weigh on the vote in the legislative elections on July 4, which should result in a Labor parliamentary majority. The current Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, with a more polite exterior than Boris Johnson, was an “early Brexiter” and the chancellor of the exchequer of his flamboyant predecessor. But the main culprits for this situation are the British themselves. A vote should never be taken lightly. An election leaves indelible traces. The French, whose political reactions are often knee-jerk, would do well to remember this when they appoint their new assembly at the end of the month.