Briefing Paper 51 – THE COSTS OF BREXIT
In this paper, the authors update their previous analysis of Brexit to reflect the presumed Free Trade Agreement (FTA). They assess the costs of Brexit with such an FTA and ask how much benefit the FTA will deliver relative to ‘No Deal’. This paper improves on previous analyses by including more detailed modelling of the costs of doing trade and of the barriers to services trade that the exit from the Single Market will introduce. Even with a deal, Brexit increases UK-EU trade costs, reduces trade between the two partners, and requires resources for form-filling, queuing, etc. The net effect is that the UK’s GDP will be 4.4% lower than in the absence of Brexit, compared with 5.5% lower if there had been no deal. Read Briefing Paper 51: The Costs of Brexit