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By johnredwood on October 16, 2025
The Remain campaign latched on to a flimsy fifteen year forecast put out by the OBR of the possible impact of Brexit. They said our trade with the EU would contract, so our productivity would decline by 0.25% a year for 15 years because of this. It would mean a lower overall increase in productivity of 4% fifteen years out, as productivity overall would continue to increase.
This has now become the simple lie, retailed by Ministers of the government and Remain/Rejoin commentators that we have lost 4% of GDP from Brexit! There is of course no sign of our GDP falling 4% from leaving the EU and that is not what the forecast said.
Forecasting for fifteen years is a bizarre over reach, given the OBR’s usual inability even to forecast current year revenues and the deficit accurately. I would not try to offer a single figure forecast for GDP 15 years hence.
We do now know the results of the Brexit vote over nearly nine years. Far from our trade contracting, it has boomed. Our exports of services, the largest part of our total exports have boomed. Exports overall are well up in real terms . There is no sign of the export hit the OBR forecast.
It is true the weakest part of our growing exports is goods to the EU.That is because the big items included oil, gas, refined oil products and petrol and diesel cars. All of these are being deliberately cut back by bans and high energy costs and taxes as part of the net zero policy.
Meanwhile the OBR in its review of its productivity forecast has confessed service exports have done so much better than they assumed without formally revising the forecast. Why?
The truth is the UK has a productivity problem with its collapse in the public sector after covid which results from bad management. The government is busily forcing closure of some of our most productive capital intensive activities in its drive to stop fossil use.
These have nothing to do with Brexit, so stop the lie about a 4%Brexit hit to GDP which never happened.