Five years ago, on 31 January 2020, the UK left the European Union. Not everyone is happy about this.
The number of Britons saying the UK was right to vote to leave the EU has hit its lowest level since the referendum, ahead of the fifth anniversary of Brexit on Friday
Right to vote to leave: 30% (-3 from Nov)
Wrong to vote to leave: 55% (=) pic.twitter.com/DnLuZhPMYT— YouGov (@YouGov) January 29, 2025
And BBC Verify, the BBC’s fact checking service, just wrote a really interesting report on the impact. They cite analysis in five key areas: trade, immigration, travel, laws and money. None of it looks good.
1) Trade
Economists and analysts generally assess the impact of leaving the EU single market and customs union on 1 Jan 2021 on the UK’s goods trade as having been negative. Studies suggest that UK goods exports are 30% lower than they would have been if we had not left the single market and customs union. Some suggest only a 6% reduction. Either way, trade is down.
2) Immigration
Immigration was a key theme in the 2016 referendum campaign, centred on freedom of movement within the EU, under which UK and EU citizens could freely move to visit, study, work and live. There has been a big fall in EU immigration and EU net migration (immigration minus emigration, since the referendum and this accelerated after 2020 due to the end of freedom of movement.
That’s the good news … but there’s bad news in that there has been a massive increase in net migration from the rest of the world since 2020.
The two main drivers of the increase in non-EU immigration since 2020 are work visas (especially in health and care) and international students and their dependents.
3) Travel
Travel has become a lot more difficult as British passport holders can no longer use “EU/EEA/CH” lanes at EU border crossing points. People can still visit the EU as a tourist for 90 days in any 180 day period without requiring a visa, provided they have at least three months remaining on their passports at the time of their return.
However, a bigger change in terms of travel is on the horizon as, this year, the EU is planning to introduce a new electronic Entry Exit System (EES) – an automated IT system for registering travellers from non-EU countries and, six months after the introduction of EES, the EU says it will introduce a new European Travel Information and Authorization System (ETIAS),. UK citizens will have to obtain ETIAS clearance for travel to 30 European countries.
In a tit-for-tat response, the UK is introducing its equivalent to ETIAS for EU citizens from 2 April 2025. The UK’s Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) will cost £16.
4) Laws
According to the latest government count, there are almost 7,000 individual pieces of EU law – covering things like working time, equal pay, food labelling and environmental standards – currently in place. In May 2023 Kemi Badenoch – the Trade Secretary at the time – announced only 600 EU laws would be axed by the end of 2023, with another 500 financial services laws set to disappear later. This is a work in progress.
5) Money
The money the UK sent to the EU was a controversial theme in the 2016 referendum, particularly the Leave campaign’s claim the UK sent £350m every week to Brussels.
The UK’s gross public sector contribution to the EU Budget in 2019-20, the final financial year before Brexit, was £18.3bn, equivalent to around £352m per week, according to the Treasury,.
There are various estimates, but the net figure today seems to indicate that, by leaving the EU, the UK is saving around £9 billion a year in EU contributions. BBC Verify notes that this figure is inherently uncertain because we don’t know what the UK’s contribution to the EU Budget would otherwise have been.
For a more detailed analysis, read the BBC’s report. Meantime, if you want more on my views of Brexit, click here.
Finally, there is this!
