The Cost of Brexit to June 2022

Since 2018, the CER has published estimates of the impact of Brexit on the UK’s economy. In this insight, I update these estimates with data until June 2022, and discuss the critique of my model published by Graham Gudgin, Julian Jessop and Harry Western on the ‘Briefings for Brexit’ website. These estimates are based on the ‘doppelgänger’ method, in which an algorithm selects countries whose economic performance closely matches the UK’s before Brexit. The method provides a counterfactual UK that did not leave the EU. Chart 1 shows quarterly estimates of the cost of Brexit to the second quarter of 2022. UK GDP is 5.5 per cent lower than that of the doppelgänger. Investment is 11 per cent lower; goods trade, 7 per cent lower; and services trade is around the same.