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UK expected to be only major economy to shrink in 2023 – IMF

143 points by open-source-ux 4y ago

PaulHoule 4y ago
I have a system that selects articles out of RSS feeds and one topic I've been watching in the last month is the political and economic breakdown in the UK. Here in the US we have George Santos and will probably see some brinksmanship over the debt ceiling this year, but in the UK the Tories are going through prime ministers and other leaders like matches. We had Jan 6 in the US but they had Brexit which is a self-inflicted injury that will never heal. Things were on the right trajectory in Northern Ireland in that there was no border and you could be as British or as Irish as you wanted to be but they wrecked it. The calendar of strikes in the UK is filled weeks ahead of time. Sooner or later the strikebreakers are going to go on strike. It is somewhat astonishing that the Tories are still in power but you can credit that to the last generation of labor leadership that seemed to have a vision for the UK becoming more like Cuba or Venezuela.
- mc32 4y ago
  I like to see self-determination in nations, the people to decide how they are going to live and select their own governance and own up in good and bad. Europe chooses their own way and within the constituent countries choose their own ways. France is wracked by large work stoppages from time to time. Russia and The Ukraine are steeped in corruption. Yes, sure, we could go in and teach them lessons on anti-bribery and corruption, but we have our own problems and we also try to fix the world and other countries' problems before we fix our own. On the one hand we squeeze retirees on their SS but on the other hand we extend benefits and housing to people without entry visas... despite our indigenous problem of fentanyl O/Ds, poverty, lack of education, obesity, etc.
  - gambiting 4y ago
    >>Russia and The Ukraine It's Ukraine, without "the" at the front.
  - PaulHoule 4y ago
    You've got some points. In most developed countries though there are not enough births to maintain a population that can easily pay for retirement, whether through the state or through the stock market. Just about everywhere other than Israel, which has different motivations than most countries, immigrants legal or not add more to the economy than they take out by a large margin. The trouble is that happens in a way that is fundamentally dishonest and undermines the legitimacy of the state. There will be some chicken-choking factory down south that they bust 700 illegal immigrants at but the people who run it will say "I had no idea... It's so hard to get help these days..." sand not face any consequences. Meanwhile I've worked for startups that make a big deal out of e-Verifying everybody and I worked with many immigrants who play by the rules and get treated pretty bad. It would be nice to see comprehensive immigration reform but it would make people confront things that they don't want to confront and frankly dump the political chessboard on the floor even though it would free us up in the long term to really confront the problems of the nation.
    - mc32 4y ago
      We need to develop an immigration system like most other advanced economies where you allow guest workers and seasonal workers to come serve an economy and feel free to go back on the off-season (whereas now, that risks not getting back in) to enjoy lower COL and family. Also, skilled immigrants add a lot to the economy, unskilled don't add as much, never the less we do need reform and normalize the system. I think business fears they would have to pay a normal wage to these workers, so they are against such a system. However, that is only fair to the immigrant workers as well as native workers who are no longer undersold.
      - PaulHoule 4y ago
        Agriculture is a particular part of the problem. If you need help at a dairy farm, for instance. you need someone who is almost 100% reliable to look after the cows and what you find is that the "low skill" people in the area would rather work at the gas station or Burger King than do the much harder farm work that often pays a little more (not much more) than the service jobs. On the other hand you get someone from Mexico who is experienced in farm work and takes it very seriously because he is saving up to start his own farm. A farm owner can easily see eye-to-eye with a person like that. There is a horse barn down the road that has struggled economically for 4/5 of the time it has been there because it has been run by angry old people, heroin dealers, and other jerks until it has recently been run by the wife of an army officer who had great success. One owner was notorious for treating the help and the customers really poorly, hiring illegals and also turned the place into the HQ of the local Republican party for one election.
- nicoburns 4y ago
  > you can credit that to the last generation of labor leadership that seemed to have a vision for the UK becoming more like Cuba or Venezuela. I think like Sweden or Norway would be a more accurate description of that vision. A lot of the policies (like nationalising the energy companies) that were mooted as radical when proposed by the labour opposition have since become mainstream.
  - recuter 4y ago
    In no way is that an accurate description of that "vision" - Norway has trillions in oil wealth and competent fiscal policies. Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world mind you, but they also had a certain nationalization happy Hugo Chavez. UK Labour increasingly resembles the latter in attitude/aptitude and crucially, no money trees to shake.
hunglee2 4y ago
UK is in a unique position of consistently making political decisions which cost money; unnecessarily hard Brexit, raising cost of import / export, reducing tax revenues, increasing cost of employment, increasing cost of doing business various rushed trade deals (Australia / NZ) made to satisfy the newspapers, despite them harming domestic farming for nothing in return various boondoggles (BritishVolt) invested in to demonstrate British industrial power, ignoring economies of scale and decades long commitment needed to see it through demonstrating fealty to the US by hostile decoupling with China, despite M15 passing Huawei telecoms products as fundamentally secure, costing UK Gov billions to replace equipment swashbuckling leadership in support of Ukraine, overcommitting already threadbare armed forces, such that a US general commented today that the UK army is no longer a first class service as a result the list can go on. UK has a political crisis, based on an identity crisis, for which there is no foreseeable solution on the horizon. Needs a miracle breakthrough technology (graphene? quantum computing?) - a literal moonshot - to reverse this decline
- Freak_NL 4y ago
  > UK has a political crisis, based on an identity crisis, for which there is no foreseeable solution on the horizon. Getting rid of the first-past-the-post voting system would be a good start. > Needs a miracle breakthrough technology (graphene? quantum computing?) - a literal moonshot - to reverse this decline A figurative one surely? Actually going to the moon would make much more sense in cooperation with other countries in any case.
  - hunglee2 4y ago
    FPTP - couldn't agree more. However, Labour are the only ones who can do it, and Starmer has not said a word about it so far, so in typical Labour fashion they will be so thankful of 'a turn' in power to lose the generational opportunity to truly improve the governance of the country
    - gadders 4y ago
      There was a referendum on removing FPTP and it was rejected by the British people.
mathw 4y ago
Yup, we're in trouble. It would be nice to elect a competent government, but there won't be an election until the current talentless frauds call one, and I'm not entirely convinced that any of the people who might win such an election are really any better. They might be for a while I suppose, but one thing our political system is not doing well is elevating talented, capable or inspiring people into positions of authority and leadership. Rather difficult to do that when the public discourse runs in a media landscape fuelled by the need to make online advertising revenue.
- deleted 4y ago
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- nicoburns 4y ago
  Yeah the current Labour party isn't as incompetent as the current government (that would be hard!), but they're also not the visionary leadership the UK really needs to lead it back to prosperity.
  - password54321 4y ago
    > Yeah the current Labour party isn't as incompetent as the current government That is a massive assumption with no evidence to support it.
  - curiousgal 4y ago
    Most of the people I've spoken to will vote conservative only because Labor doesn't have anything planned (rejoining for instance), at least this way they can save a few tax pounds.
- devnull3 4y ago
  I think there is still time to course-correct. It is UK's bad luck that none of the political parties have any meaningful to offer. Also, UK is stuck in a weird spot where I think lot of people know what needs to be done [1] but those things are so much under the shadow of brexit that it is unpalatable to talk about it in public. No one is willing to call spade a spade. [1] Rejoining EU, NHS reforms, Immigration reforms, etc
icu 4y ago
Imho the UK post Brexit lacks political leadership that knows how to manoeuvre the competing political factions within the Conservative party and balance the short-term and long-term economic pressures it faces. Trump was the UK's best chance at a US trade deal and the terms were too unpalatable for the Conservatives. This imho was a self inflicted economic injury. Demographically most of the West (including the EU) is in terminal demographic decline and in particular the European flavour of socialism (i.e. a deep belief that the State is a necessary part of economic development) will start to fail under the crushing weight of an ever larger aging population. The US and Mexico will be the most important growth export market for the UK going forward into the next several decades, and the cost of a trade deal with the US will increase the longer the UK gets desperate. Alternatively the UK could try to create a Commonwealth free trade zone (and include the 2nd most important market India) but that takes imagination and leadership that again I think is lacking.
- substation13 4y ago
  - India can be very protectionist economically - Historically UK politics has been very opposed to immigration from India (despite many immigrants from India being very successful in the UK!) - India is physically far away
  - andyjohnson0 4y ago
    > India is physically far away Everywhere is physically far away, except for the EU.
hungryforcodes 4y ago
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globalise83 4y ago
I left the UK in 2015 to live in mainland Europe. At that time it really felt like the UK was in a great position: at the center of the world's scientific research, leader in finance, publishing, knowledge-based services and cultural production, part of a huge single market. Travel connections to every town in Europe. All things in which I experienced day-to-day. The day I woke up to hear the news about the Brexit vote in 2016, I knew that was all gone, and now here we are.
- schnitzelstoat 4y ago
  I mean it still has the most tech jobs and the highest salaries in Europe. It's declining, but from a very high spot.
  - dougmwne 4y ago
    It doesn’t take too many years of negative growth while every other major country is growing for the UK to end up in a vastly diminished position.
  - mytailorisrich 4y ago
    The UK also managed to develop and produce a Covid vaccine in record time and all by themselves. They are the only ones in Europe (with Russia). Not too shabby.
    - gambiting 4y ago
      Because they were already working on mRNA vaccines for years beforehand, as a pure coincidence - it's a fascinating story on its own. The lab behind it went from a massively underfunded operation that was making progress against all odds, to suddenly having billions thrown at it to speed up the introduction of their tech at industrial scale.
      - mytailorisrich 4y ago
        It's not pure coincidence. It means that they have top teams working on the cutting edge and being pretty good at it, and that they have domestic pharma companies able to mass produce those advances quickly, which also means that they are at the cutting edge. And of course it means that, for once at least, the government acted strategically, decisively, and quickly (the government directly intervened so that production would go to a British company, for instance). France did not produce any vaccines. Germany produced one but effectively sold it to the US (Pfizer). Just to point that the UK is not to be written off just yet.
rgllm 4y ago
One word: Brexit
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billpg 4y ago
Thank you Brexit!
jgrahamc 4y ago
I have done my part in this slow down I imagine: ordering anything from the UK for delivery into the EU is a nightmare. Everything takes forever and smaller businesses simply don't deal with the paperwork meaning you're left with a mess at local customs. The result is dealing with local bureaucracy and paying high import duties (or in some cases simply seeing the thing you bought get returned to the UK). Because it became such a mess I simply gave up. For example, I used to buy Elemis brand products. They still sell in Euros but here's what it says on their website: "Please note, orders that are shipping outside of the UK will not be charged UK sales tax but maybe subject to customs charges and tax that will need to be paid directly. This affects orders placed both in £ and in Euro. We advise you to please check requirements with the local authority before placing your order." (https://eu.elemis.com/delivery https://eu.elemis.com/delivery) Ordering from the UK is the same as ordering from the US or China. Which is ridiculous given the physical proximity. Great job poking yourself in the eye, Britain! And, worse, there are businesses that have figured out the customs/tax situation and will ship directly to Europe with no problem, but now I'm gun-shy and figure it'll be a mess so I go look elsewhere.
- darraghenright 4y ago
  Absolutely. Apparently, the amount of trade between Ireland and the UK has collapsed since Brexit, and it's not hard to imagine why — given that both countries have long been close trading partners, and now ordering from the UK is going to come with a raft of customs charges and often VAT etc. Doesn't even matter if it's some second hand item from eBay or whatever. This pretty much rules out buying anything from the UK for me, something I and many others I know would have done without much thought. It's really frustrating because you'll often find UK vendors are better stocked and have (or at least had) better prices. I can only imagine this has hit UK based sellers pretty hard. And vice versa — perhaps more so. Brexit is a poke in Ireland's eye too, frankly.
- modernerd 4y ago
  I've largely managed to find EU alternatives that pay import duty for most of the things I used to buy from the UK. For example, Feel Unique are pretty good for cosmetics: https://eu.feelunique.com/brands/elemis?q=ELEMIS https://eu.feelunique.com/brands/elemis?q=ELEMIS https://eu.feelunique.com/help-centre/Feelunique+Order/Feelunique%20Delivery%20Information https://eu.feelunique.com/help-centre/Feelunique+Order/Feelu...
MisterBastahrd 4y ago
Man, if only someone would have told them that their isolationism due to racism and xenophobia would end up crippling their economy. Besides everyone with a working brain, I mean. Meanwhile, it seems they've got at least 5 more rounds in the revolver with which to shoot themselves in the same foot.
racktash 4y ago
I voted Remain in the referendum and my stance on the matter hasn't changed. To me, it always made sense to be part of the EU. I say this up front in case what I say next is read in the wrong light. I get wary when so many people, or so it seems to me, delight in the economic situation Britain is in, pointing out how duped the sad saps that voted Brexit must now be feeling. But from the Brexit voters I've talked to, the whole point was always political independence. When Ireland fought to be independent of the UK, to take but one example, pointing out the economic negative effects is to miss the point of seeking independence completely. I know the situation between the UK and EU is different to that of the UK and Ireland of old. My point is that the UK has strong, old political traditions that some felt, rightly or wrongly, were being interfered with by foreign political institutions.
- pavlov 4y ago
  Were those really foreign political institutions when Britain was directly involved in their creation and Thatcher's governments basically wrote much of the rules of the free trade area?
  - tablespoon 4y ago
    > Were those really foreign political institutions when Britain was directly involved in their creation and Thatcher's governments basically wrote much of the rules of the free trade area? Are you talking about the EU? Because its governing institutions would rightly be seen as foreign (or at least not domestic/ours), until Britons' felt national identity becomes European rather than British. That matters more than the legalistic actions taken by some politician or any particular policy.
    - pavlov 4y ago
      That’s the question. Why did so many of the British never feel the EU is “theirs” even though objectively they were one of the most powerful countries in the Union and were instrumental in designing the rules? It might have made some kind of difference if enough politicians after 1990 would have bothered to explain that to the British public.
maxehmookau 4y ago
Yeah, increasing trading barriers with the world's largest trading bloc that you also happen to be physically connected to will do that. Brexit is a catastrophe.
gadders 4y ago
[flagged]
- martopix 4y ago
  If you had a well-documented position on why that's not (one of) the answer(s), we would be happy to hear it. If this is all what Leavers have to say, on the other hand, yours will be a self-fulfilling prophecy.
  - epistemer 4y ago
    The economy is so high dimensional as to be basically stochastic but people like to make up bullshit stories about this stochastic process? Of course that is not satisfactory. "The market went down because of X". For whatever reason people need to read that even knowing that X is nonsense. Not to mention, it was only like 3 weeks ago that every outlet was predicting a global recession. This prediction is almost certainly wrong as well.
  - gadders 4y ago
    How could you possibly unpick Brexit from the effects of COVID?
    - martopix 4y ago
      Covid happened worldwide.
stjohnswarts 4y ago
Brexit was their own choice so I don't have much sympathy for them.
- widdershins 4y ago
  Perhaps you could retain some sympathy for the 48% of us who voted against it.
  - timbit42 4y ago
    Absolutely.
BurningFrog 4y ago
Lots of grand conclusions from a single data point here. Congratulations to everyone who has been proven right!
- oneoff786 4y ago
  That datapoint is a forecast derived from many data points. You may not agree with the forecast, but the count is not persuasive.
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Proven 4y ago
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FlotaDeAragon 4y ago
Economists have predicted a crash in the UK economy in the last 6 out of 6 years Time passes and performance stays identical to Germany and France
- blackbear_ 4y ago
  So are you questioning the possibility of a crash in the near future or just the timing?
password54321 4y ago
Anyone else want to see the UK go into recession? A lot of people are very upset as it is, with the collapse of the NHS, schools and public transport and rising food costs. At the same time it is not even the British people who get a lot of the high paying jobs. And I really don't see things changing much without drastic consequences.
throwaway22032 4y ago
The UK political system is anti-business. It's just that simple. IR35 makes it a pain in the arse to do contract work. It turns a simple "want this doing? ok, sure" into a legal mess. Public sector contract? Forget about it. Business rates on commercial property turns high streets into ghost towns. Ridiculous "reforms" in the housing market both pump prices and also reduce rental supply. So now we have a rental crisis whereby people are paying 900 a month for a single bedroom in the capital when commonly wages are 1.5k a month. During coronavirus the government told businesses to close but didn't pass legislation to freeze or help them with rental costs. So a ton of businesses just failed because all of their savings went to their landlord whilst they were legally forbidden from earning anything. London added a charge of £15 a day to basically every independent tradesman's van which directly increases their costs by over £2k a year unless they spend even more than that "upgrading". I could go on. Top to bottom it's just anti growth. A lot of this stuff needs to be ripped up and we need to start again with policies actually designed to grow the economy.
zabzonk 4y ago
apparently, boston uk is the town that most believes that brexit has been a success in the country. the majority of uk people believe otherwise, and think that brexit has been the cause for the economy shrink. mind you, boston and inhabitants are a bit like innsmouth, so maybe the deep ones have had something to do with this?
bannedbybros 4y ago
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jvmfjvfjvf 4y ago
Germany actually shrank. Why isn't this mentioned? https://www.ft.com/content/dc978c84-64c4-42cd-bfe5-7d59e1441475 https://www.ft.com/content/dc978c84-64c4-42cd-bfe5-7d59e1441...
- s_dev 4y ago
  Because the article says it grew last year and is forecasted to grow next year and your article is behind a paywall.
Krisjohn 4y ago
"expected"? So the rest of the world is just going to be surprised?

I have a system that selects articles out of RSS feeds and one topic I've been watching in the last month is the political and economic breakdown in the UK. Here in the US we have George Santos and will probably see some brinksmanship over the debt ceiling this year, but in the UK the Tories are going through prime ministers and other leaders like matches. We had Jan 6 in the US but they had Brexit which is a self-inflicted injury that will never heal. Things were on the right trajectory in Northern Ireland in that there was no border and you could be as British or as Irish as you wanted to be but they wrecked it. The calendar of strikes in the UK is filled weeks ahead of time. Sooner or later the strikebreakers are going to go on strike. It is somewhat astonishing that the Tories are still in power but you can credit that to the last generation of labor leadership that seemed to have a vision for the UK becoming more like Cuba or Venezuela.

mc32 4y ago
I like to see self-determination in nations, the people to decide how they are going to live and select their own governance and own up in good and bad. Europe chooses their own way and within the constituent countries choose their own ways. France is wracked by large work stoppages from time to time. Russia and The Ukraine are steeped in corruption. Yes, sure, we could go in and teach them lessons on anti-bribery and corruption, but we have our own problems and we also try to fix the world and other countries' problems before we fix our own. On the one hand we squeeze retirees on their SS but on the other hand we extend benefits and housing to people without entry visas... despite our indigenous problem of fentanyl O/Ds, poverty, lack of education, obesity, etc.
- gambiting 4y ago
  >>Russia and The Ukraine It's Ukraine, without "the" at the front.
- PaulHoule 4y ago
  You've got some points. In most developed countries though there are not enough births to maintain a population that can easily pay for retirement, whether through the state or through the stock market. Just about everywhere other than Israel, which has different motivations than most countries, immigrants legal or not add more to the economy than they take out by a large margin. The trouble is that happens in a way that is fundamentally dishonest and undermines the legitimacy of the state. There will be some chicken-choking factory down south that they bust 700 illegal immigrants at but the people who run it will say "I had no idea... It's so hard to get help these days..." sand not face any consequences. Meanwhile I've worked for startups that make a big deal out of e-Verifying everybody and I worked with many immigrants who play by the rules and get treated pretty bad. It would be nice to see comprehensive immigration reform but it would make people confront things that they don't want to confront and frankly dump the political chessboard on the floor even though it would free us up in the long term to really confront the problems of the nation.
  - mc32 4y ago
    We need to develop an immigration system like most other advanced economies where you allow guest workers and seasonal workers to come serve an economy and feel free to go back on the off-season (whereas now, that risks not getting back in) to enjoy lower COL and family. Also, skilled immigrants add a lot to the economy, unskilled don't add as much, never the less we do need reform and normalize the system. I think business fears they would have to pay a normal wage to these workers, so they are against such a system. However, that is only fair to the immigrant workers as well as native workers who are no longer undersold.
    - PaulHoule 4y ago
      Agriculture is a particular part of the problem. If you need help at a dairy farm, for instance. you need someone who is almost 100% reliable to look after the cows and what you find is that the "low skill" people in the area would rather work at the gas station or Burger King than do the much harder farm work that often pays a little more (not much more) than the service jobs. On the other hand you get someone from Mexico who is experienced in farm work and takes it very seriously because he is saving up to start his own farm. A farm owner can easily see eye-to-eye with a person like that. There is a horse barn down the road that has struggled economically for 4/5 of the time it has been there because it has been run by angry old people, heroin dealers, and other jerks until it has recently been run by the wife of an army officer who had great success. One owner was notorious for treating the help and the customers really poorly, hiring illegals and also turned the place into the HQ of the local Republican party for one election.
nicoburns 4y ago
> you can credit that to the last generation of labor leadership that seemed to have a vision for the UK becoming more like Cuba or Venezuela. I think like Sweden or Norway would be a more accurate description of that vision. A lot of the policies (like nationalising the energy companies) that were mooted as radical when proposed by the labour opposition have since become mainstream.
- recuter 4y ago
  In no way is that an accurate description of that "vision" - Norway has trillions in oil wealth and competent fiscal policies. Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world mind you, but they also had a certain nationalization happy Hugo Chavez. UK Labour increasingly resembles the latter in attitude/aptitude and crucially, no money trees to shake.

hunglee2 4y ago

UK is in a unique position of consistently making political decisions which cost money; unnecessarily hard Brexit, raising cost of import / export, reducing tax revenues, increasing cost of employment, increasing cost of doing business various rushed trade deals (Australia / NZ) made to satisfy the newspapers, despite them harming domestic farming for nothing in return various boondoggles (BritishVolt) invested in to demonstrate British industrial power, ignoring economies of scale and decades long commitment needed to see it through demonstrating fealty to the US by hostile decoupling with China, despite M15 passing Huawei telecoms products as fundamentally secure, costing UK Gov billions to replace equipment swashbuckling leadership in support of Ukraine, overcommitting already threadbare armed forces, such that a US general commented today that the UK army is no longer a first class service as a result the list can go on. UK has a political crisis, based on an identity crisis, for which there is no foreseeable solution on the horizon. Needs a miracle breakthrough technology (graphene? quantum computing?) - a literal moonshot - to reverse this decline

Freak_NL 4y ago
> UK has a political crisis, based on an identity crisis, for which there is no foreseeable solution on the horizon. Getting rid of the first-past-the-post voting system would be a good start. > Needs a miracle breakthrough technology (graphene? quantum computing?) - a literal moonshot - to reverse this decline A figurative one surely? Actually going to the moon would make much more sense in cooperation with other countries in any case.
- hunglee2 4y ago
  FPTP - couldn't agree more. However, Labour are the only ones who can do it, and Starmer has not said a word about it so far, so in typical Labour fashion they will be so thankful of 'a turn' in power to lose the generational opportunity to truly improve the governance of the country
  - gadders 4y ago
    There was a referendum on removing FPTP and it was rejected by the British people.

mathw 4y ago

Yup, we're in trouble. It would be nice to elect a competent government, but there won't be an election until the current talentless frauds call one, and I'm not entirely convinced that any of the people who might win such an election are really any better. They might be for a while I suppose, but one thing our political system is not doing well is elevating talented, capable or inspiring people into positions of authority and leadership. Rather difficult to do that when the public discourse runs in a media landscape fuelled by the need to make online advertising revenue.

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nicoburns 4y ago
Yeah the current Labour party isn't as incompetent as the current government (that would be hard!), but they're also not the visionary leadership the UK really needs to lead it back to prosperity.
- password54321 4y ago
  > Yeah the current Labour party isn't as incompetent as the current government That is a massive assumption with no evidence to support it.
- curiousgal 4y ago
  Most of the people I've spoken to will vote conservative only because Labor doesn't have anything planned (rejoining for instance), at least this way they can save a few tax pounds.
devnull3 4y ago
I think there is still time to course-correct. It is UK's bad luck that none of the political parties have any meaningful to offer. Also, UK is stuck in a weird spot where I think lot of people know what needs to be done [1] but those things are so much under the shadow of brexit that it is unpalatable to talk about it in public. No one is willing to call spade a spade. [1] Rejoining EU, NHS reforms, Immigration reforms, etc

icu 4y ago

Imho the UK post Brexit lacks political leadership that knows how to manoeuvre the competing political factions within the Conservative party and balance the short-term and long-term economic pressures it faces. Trump was the UK's best chance at a US trade deal and the terms were too unpalatable for the Conservatives. This imho was a self inflicted economic injury. Demographically most of the West (including the EU) is in terminal demographic decline and in particular the European flavour of socialism (i.e. a deep belief that the State is a necessary part of economic development) will start to fail under the crushing weight of an ever larger aging population. The US and Mexico will be the most important growth export market for the UK going forward into the next several decades, and the cost of a trade deal with the US will increase the longer the UK gets desperate. Alternatively the UK could try to create a Commonwealth free trade zone (and include the 2nd most important market India) but that takes imagination and leadership that again I think is lacking.

substation13 4y ago
- India can be very protectionist economically - Historically UK politics has been very opposed to immigration from India (despite many immigrants from India being very successful in the UK!) - India is physically far away
- andyjohnson0 4y ago
  > India is physically far away Everywhere is physically far away, except for the EU.

hungryforcodes 4y ago

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globalise83 4y ago

I left the UK in 2015 to live in mainland Europe. At that time it really felt like the UK was in a great position: at the center of the world's scientific research, leader in finance, publishing, knowledge-based services and cultural production, part of a huge single market. Travel connections to every town in Europe. All things in which I experienced day-to-day. The day I woke up to hear the news about the Brexit vote in 2016, I knew that was all gone, and now here we are.

schnitzelstoat 4y ago
I mean it still has the most tech jobs and the highest salaries in Europe. It's declining, but from a very high spot.
- dougmwne 4y ago
  It doesn’t take too many years of negative growth while every other major country is growing for the UK to end up in a vastly diminished position.
- mytailorisrich 4y ago
  The UK also managed to develop and produce a Covid vaccine in record time and all by themselves. They are the only ones in Europe (with Russia). Not too shabby.
  - gambiting 4y ago
    Because they were already working on mRNA vaccines for years beforehand, as a pure coincidence - it's a fascinating story on its own. The lab behind it went from a massively underfunded operation that was making progress against all odds, to suddenly having billions thrown at it to speed up the introduction of their tech at industrial scale.
    - mytailorisrich 4y ago
      It's not pure coincidence. It means that they have top teams working on the cutting edge and being pretty good at it, and that they have domestic pharma companies able to mass produce those advances quickly, which also means that they are at the cutting edge. And of course it means that, for once at least, the government acted strategically, decisively, and quickly (the government directly intervened so that production would go to a British company, for instance). France did not produce any vaccines. Germany produced one but effectively sold it to the US (Pfizer). Just to point that the UK is not to be written off just yet.

rgllm 4y ago

One word: Brexit

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billpg 4y ago

Thank you Brexit!

jgrahamc 4y ago

I have done my part in this slow down I imagine: ordering anything from the UK for delivery into the EU is a nightmare. Everything takes forever and smaller businesses simply don't deal with the paperwork meaning you're left with a mess at local customs. The result is dealing with local bureaucracy and paying high import duties (or in some cases simply seeing the thing you bought get returned to the UK). Because it became such a mess I simply gave up. For example, I used to buy Elemis brand products. They still sell in Euros but here's what it says on their website: "Please note, orders that are shipping outside of the UK will not be charged UK sales tax but maybe subject to customs charges and tax that will need to be paid directly. This affects orders placed both in £ and in Euro. We advise you to please check requirements with the local authority before placing your order." (https://eu.elemis.com/delivery https://eu.elemis.com/delivery) Ordering from the UK is the same as ordering from the US or China. Which is ridiculous given the physical proximity. Great job poking yourself in the eye, Britain! And, worse, there are businesses that have figured out the customs/tax situation and will ship directly to Europe with no problem, but now I'm gun-shy and figure it'll be a mess so I go look elsewhere.

darraghenright 4y ago
Absolutely. Apparently, the amount of trade between Ireland and the UK has collapsed since Brexit, and it's not hard to imagine why — given that both countries have long been close trading partners, and now ordering from the UK is going to come with a raft of customs charges and often VAT etc. Doesn't even matter if it's some second hand item from eBay or whatever. This pretty much rules out buying anything from the UK for me, something I and many others I know would have done without much thought. It's really frustrating because you'll often find UK vendors are better stocked and have (or at least had) better prices. I can only imagine this has hit UK based sellers pretty hard. And vice versa — perhaps more so. Brexit is a poke in Ireland's eye too, frankly.
modernerd 4y ago
I've largely managed to find EU alternatives that pay import duty for most of the things I used to buy from the UK. For example, Feel Unique are pretty good for cosmetics: https://eu.feelunique.com/brands/elemis?q=ELEMIS https://eu.feelunique.com/brands/elemis?q=ELEMIS https://eu.feelunique.com/help-centre/Feelunique+Order/Feelunique%20Delivery%20Information https://eu.feelunique.com/help-centre/Feelunique+Order/Feelu...

MisterBastahrd 4y ago

Man, if only someone would have told them that their isolationism due to racism and xenophobia would end up crippling their economy. Besides everyone with a working brain, I mean. Meanwhile, it seems they've got at least 5 more rounds in the revolver with which to shoot themselves in the same foot.

racktash 4y ago

I voted Remain in the referendum and my stance on the matter hasn't changed. To me, it always made sense to be part of the EU. I say this up front in case what I say next is read in the wrong light. I get wary when so many people, or so it seems to me, delight in the economic situation Britain is in, pointing out how duped the sad saps that voted Brexit must now be feeling. But from the Brexit voters I've talked to, the whole point was always political independence. When Ireland fought to be independent of the UK, to take but one example, pointing out the economic negative effects is to miss the point of seeking independence completely. I know the situation between the UK and EU is different to that of the UK and Ireland of old. My point is that the UK has strong, old political traditions that some felt, rightly or wrongly, were being interfered with by foreign political institutions.

pavlov 4y ago
Were those really foreign political institutions when Britain was directly involved in their creation and Thatcher's governments basically wrote much of the rules of the free trade area?
- tablespoon 4y ago
  > Were those really foreign political institutions when Britain was directly involved in their creation and Thatcher's governments basically wrote much of the rules of the free trade area? Are you talking about the EU? Because its governing institutions would rightly be seen as foreign (or at least not domestic/ours), until Britons' felt national identity becomes European rather than British. That matters more than the legalistic actions taken by some politician or any particular policy.
  - pavlov 4y ago
    That’s the question. Why did so many of the British never feel the EU is “theirs” even though objectively they were one of the most powerful countries in the Union and were instrumental in designing the rules? It might have made some kind of difference if enough politicians after 1990 would have bothered to explain that to the British public.

maxehmookau 4y ago

Yeah, increasing trading barriers with the world's largest trading bloc that you also happen to be physically connected to will do that. Brexit is a catastrophe.

gadders 4y ago

[flagged]

martopix 4y ago
If you had a well-documented position on why that's not (one of) the answer(s), we would be happy to hear it. If this is all what Leavers have to say, on the other hand, yours will be a self-fulfilling prophecy.
- epistemer 4y ago
  The economy is so high dimensional as to be basically stochastic but people like to make up bullshit stories about this stochastic process? Of course that is not satisfactory. "The market went down because of X". For whatever reason people need to read that even knowing that X is nonsense. Not to mention, it was only like 3 weeks ago that every outlet was predicting a global recession. This prediction is almost certainly wrong as well.
- gadders 4y ago
  How could you possibly unpick Brexit from the effects of COVID?
  - martopix 4y ago
    Covid happened worldwide.

stjohnswarts 4y ago

Brexit was their own choice so I don't have much sympathy for them.

widdershins 4y ago
Perhaps you could retain some sympathy for the 48% of us who voted against it.
- timbit42 4y ago
  Absolutely.

BurningFrog 4y ago

Lots of grand conclusions from a single data point here. Congratulations to everyone who has been proven right!

oneoff786 4y ago
That datapoint is a forecast derived from many data points. You may not agree with the forecast, but the count is not persuasive.

deleted 4y ago

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Proven 4y ago

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FlotaDeAragon 4y ago

Economists have predicted a crash in the UK economy in the last 6 out of 6 years Time passes and performance stays identical to Germany and France

blackbear_ 4y ago
So are you questioning the possibility of a crash in the near future or just the timing?

password54321 4y ago

Anyone else want to see the UK go into recession? A lot of people are very upset as it is, with the collapse of the NHS, schools and public transport and rising food costs. At the same time it is not even the British people who get a lot of the high paying jobs. And I really don't see things changing much without drastic consequences.

throwaway22032 4y ago

The UK political system is anti-business. It's just that simple. IR35 makes it a pain in the arse to do contract work. It turns a simple "want this doing? ok, sure" into a legal mess. Public sector contract? Forget about it. Business rates on commercial property turns high streets into ghost towns. Ridiculous "reforms" in the housing market both pump prices and also reduce rental supply. So now we have a rental crisis whereby people are paying 900 a month for a single bedroom in the capital when commonly wages are 1.5k a month. During coronavirus the government told businesses to close but didn't pass legislation to freeze or help them with rental costs. So a ton of businesses just failed because all of their savings went to their landlord whilst they were legally forbidden from earning anything. London added a charge of £15 a day to basically every independent tradesman's van which directly increases their costs by over £2k a year unless they spend even more than that "upgrading". I could go on. Top to bottom it's just anti growth. A lot of this stuff needs to be ripped up and we need to start again with policies actually designed to grow the economy.

zabzonk 4y ago

apparently, boston uk is the town that most believes that brexit has been a success in the country. the majority of uk people believe otherwise, and think that brexit has been the cause for the economy shrink. mind you, boston and inhabitants are a bit like innsmouth, so maybe the deep ones have had something to do with this?

bannedbybros 4y ago

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jvmfjvfjvf 4y ago

Germany actually shrank. Why isn't this mentioned? https://www.ft.com/content/dc978c84-64c4-42cd-bfe5-7d59e1441475 https://www.ft.com/content/dc978c84-64c4-42cd-bfe5-7d59e1441...

s_dev 4y ago
Because the article says it grew last year and is forecasted to grow next year and your article is behind a paywall.

Krisjohn 4y ago

"expected"? So the rest of the world is just going to be surprised?