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Is the OBR's own analysis of Brexit evidence enough for you? Even Jeremy Hunt has conceded Brexit is causing problems! https://www.politico.eu/article/brexit-

by jmfldn 4y ago

Is the OBR's own analysis of Brexit evidence enough for you? Even Jeremy Hunt has conceded Brexit is causing problems! https://www.politico.eu/article/brexit-had-significant-adverse-impact-on-uk-trade-says-public-finances-watchdog%EF%BF%BC/ https://www.politico.eu/article/brexit-had-significant-adver...

mike_hearn 4y ago
Jeremy Hunt campaigned for Remain and then pushed for a second referendum when his side lost, so it's unclear why you think his anti-Brexit stance is worth remarking on. Are you thinking of someone else, perhaps? Re: OBR. We're talking about food price inflation. The article you cite in turn cites the OBR, but (a) contrary to what you're suggesting the OBR doesn't have seem to have done any of its own analysis and (b) it only mentions Brexit twice, once about immigration and the other is a single paragraph which isn't about food price inflation. It says: "Our trade forecast reflects our assumption that Brexit will result in the UK’s trade intensity being 15 per cent lower in the long run than if the UK had remained in the EU" They don't define what "long run" means and they don't state where this assumption came from. That's the quality of the OBR's in-house analysis: there isn't any. That's not a huge surprise. The civil service has a poor track record of economic forecasting in all respects, but especially on anything to do with Brexit. The government forecast before the vote that voting to leave (not leaving, just voting to leave) would trigger an immediate recession in which between 500,000 and 800,000 jobs would be lost, due to "uncertainty". In fact the economy grew and unemployment fell. They do then mention the "latest evidence suggests a significant adverse impact on UK trade", and cite two other papers. Both are only about claimed changes in UK/EU trade, not UK trade as a whole. The first ESRI paper relies on such complicated modelling it's not worth spending time on and their abstract asserts a dubious assumption right up front. The LSE paper states: "Second, the implementation of the TCA triggered a small and only temporary decline in relative UK exports to the EU in 2021. These sharply fell in January, immediately following the introduction of the TCA, but quickly recovered within half a year" It does say that the UK reduced imports from the EU significantly, but this would be expected given the currency value decline and that the EU external tariffs no longer discourage UK companies from importing from outside of Europe. The UK trade balance hasn't had a sudden improvement so it just means imports are now more balanced w.r.t. ROW.
- jmfldn 4y ago
  Why mention Jeremy Hunt? Just the small matter of him being the Chancellor of the Exchequer of the UK govt with a track record of good analysis. Believe what you want at the end of the day. I would love to have to been proven wrong, but Brexit is an unmitigated disaster to almost every expert worth listening to.
  - mike_hearn 4y ago
    But you said "even Jeremy Hunt has conceded", implying his position is new. It isn't. Hunt's previous analysis of Brexit, from the original campaign: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/mar/26/nhs-under-threat-from-brexit https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/mar/26/nhs-under-t... "The National Health Service will face budget cuts, falling standards and an exodus of overseas doctors and nurses if the UK leaves the European Union" NHS budget has dramatically grown since leaving the EU and so has NHS employment of immigrant workers: https://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/chart/number-of-eu-and-non-eu-nurse-registrations-uk-1990-91-to-2020-21 https://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/chart/number-of-eu-and-non-... i.e. his predictions were wrong and his track record is therefore not good.
    - jmfldn 4y ago
      My point is that, as Chancellor of a government which accepts Brexit as a done deal, it is interesting for him to do anything other than shower Brexit with praise. Criticism from within the ranks of the Tory government is significant and a sign of shifting tides. This is the sense in which he 'conceded'. Until recently this was omerta. As I say, believe what you want, I genuinely want to be wrong as I feel ever-growing despair at what has happened to my country, not least under recent Tory governments. We are a country in decline. I'm now pretty certain of it.
      - mike_hearn 4y ago
        "Criticism from within the ranks of the Tory government is significant and a sign of shifting tides" Well, the Conservatives officially campaigned to remain and Boris had to kick out dozens of MPs at the last election to even be able to implement the vote at all. Whether someone is a truly reformed Remainer or not has been a question at every leadership contest since. So there's nothing significant or new about Tories disagreeing with Brexit, it's a pretty standard position within the party. "We are a country in decline. I'm now pretty certain of it." I am too! We don't actually disagree on that. The GDP/capita trends are pretty clear there, especially when compared to the USA. It's not relevant to food price inflation which has different causes, however. The difference between us is I think the issues long pre-date 2016, are mostly to do with entrenched social attitudes, were made worse/locked in place by EU membership and therefore that Brexit is a necessary (but not sufficient) condition for reversing the decline. Whereas you see a decline as a recent thing and Brexit/the ruling party as the cause.

by jmfldn 4y ago

mike_hearn 4y ago

Jeremy Hunt campaigned for Remain and then pushed for a second referendum when his side lost, so it's unclear why you think his anti-Brexit stance is worth remarking on. Are you thinking of someone else, perhaps? Re: OBR. We're talking about food price inflation. The article you cite in turn cites the OBR, but (a) contrary to what you're suggesting the OBR doesn't have seem to have done any of its own analysis and (b) it only mentions Brexit twice, once about immigration and the other is a single paragraph which isn't about food price inflation. It says: "Our trade forecast reflects our assumption that Brexit will result in the UK’s trade intensity being 15 per cent lower in the long run than if the UK had remained in the EU" They don't define what "long run" means and they don't state where this assumption came from. That's the quality of the OBR's in-house analysis: there isn't any. That's not a huge surprise. The civil service has a poor track record of economic forecasting in all respects, but especially on anything to do with Brexit. The government forecast before the vote that voting to leave (not leaving, just voting to leave) would trigger an immediate recession in which between 500,000 and 800,000 jobs would be lost, due to "uncertainty". In fact the economy grew and unemployment fell. They do then mention the "latest evidence suggests a significant adverse impact on UK trade", and cite two other papers. Both are only about claimed changes in UK/EU trade, not UK trade as a whole. The first ESRI paper relies on such complicated modelling it's not worth spending time on and their abstract asserts a dubious assumption right up front. The LSE paper states: "Second, the implementation of the TCA triggered a small and only temporary decline in relative UK exports to the EU in 2021. These sharply fell in January, immediately following the introduction of the TCA, but quickly recovered within half a year" It does say that the UK reduced imports from the EU significantly, but this would be expected given the currency value decline and that the EU external tariffs no longer discourage UK companies from importing from outside of Europe. The UK trade balance hasn't had a sudden improvement so it just means imports are now more balanced w.r.t. ROW.

jmfldn 4y ago
Why mention Jeremy Hunt? Just the small matter of him being the Chancellor of the Exchequer of the UK govt with a track record of good analysis. Believe what you want at the end of the day. I would love to have to been proven wrong, but Brexit is an unmitigated disaster to almost every expert worth listening to.
- mike_hearn 4y ago
  But you said "even Jeremy Hunt has conceded", implying his position is new. It isn't. Hunt's previous analysis of Brexit, from the original campaign: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/mar/26/nhs-under-threat-from-brexit https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/mar/26/nhs-under-t... "The National Health Service will face budget cuts, falling standards and an exodus of overseas doctors and nurses if the UK leaves the European Union" NHS budget has dramatically grown since leaving the EU and so has NHS employment of immigrant workers: https://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/chart/number-of-eu-and-non-eu-nurse-registrations-uk-1990-91-to-2020-21 https://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/chart/number-of-eu-and-non-... i.e. his predictions were wrong and his track record is therefore not good.
  - jmfldn 4y ago
    My point is that, as Chancellor of a government which accepts Brexit as a done deal, it is interesting for him to do anything other than shower Brexit with praise. Criticism from within the ranks of the Tory government is significant and a sign of shifting tides. This is the sense in which he 'conceded'. Until recently this was omerta. As I say, believe what you want, I genuinely want to be wrong as I feel ever-growing despair at what has happened to my country, not least under recent Tory governments. We are a country in decline. I'm now pretty certain of it.
    - mike_hearn 4y ago
      "Criticism from within the ranks of the Tory government is significant and a sign of shifting tides" Well, the Conservatives officially campaigned to remain and Boris had to kick out dozens of MPs at the last election to even be able to implement the vote at all. Whether someone is a truly reformed Remainer or not has been a question at every leadership contest since. So there's nothing significant or new about Tories disagreeing with Brexit, it's a pretty standard position within the party. "We are a country in decline. I'm now pretty certain of it." I am too! We don't actually disagree on that. The GDP/capita trends are pretty clear there, especially when compared to the USA. It's not relevant to food price inflation which has different causes, however. The difference between us is I think the issues long pre-date 2016, are mostly to do with entrenched social attitudes, were made worse/locked in place by EU membership and therefore that Brexit is a necessary (but not sufficient) condition for reversing the decline. Whereas you see a decline as a recent thing and Brexit/the ruling party as the cause.