What happened to the ‘Brexit dividend’? It has turned into an economic nightmare

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Official estimates from the Office for Budget Responsibility point to a Brexit loss of more than £1,250 per person over the coming years (AP)

It was intriguing, but not unexpected, to note that all of Boris Johnson’s new post-Brexit trade deals put together will have an economic benefit of just £3-£7 per person over the next 15 years, according to the government’s own figures.

Analysis by top academics at the University of Sussex’s UK Trade Policy Observatory have highlighted that the tiny economic boost – amounting to just 0.01 to 0.02 per cent of GDP, and less than 50p per person a year – is dwarfed by the economic hit from leaving the EU, which the government estimates at 4 per cent of GDP over the same period. The analysis suggests that the much-trumpeted free trade agreements (FTAs) “barely scratch the surface of the UK’s challenge to make up the GDP lost by leaving the EU”.

Mr Johnson has boasted of the deals creating a “new dawn” and representing “global Britain at its best” – but just two of the dozens announced since the UK left the EU are expected to have any measurable economic impact at all. Official estimates from the Office for Budget Responsibility point to a Brexit loss of more than £1,250 per person over the coming years – more than 178 times the most optimistic prediction for the benefits from the trade deals. The dream of a so-called “Brexit dividend” has turned into the economic nightmare many of us have been warning of for years.