Goldman Sachs says Brexit is costing us 5% of GDP. How long can this disaster go on?

This is, as the baseball manager Yogi Berra is claimed to have said, like “déjà vu all over again.”

First it was the government’s own independent financial watchdog the Office for Budget Responsibility which found Brexit is costing the UK 4% of its economy. This was cited by Brexiteers as a sure sign that the OBR is a left-leaning, woke, Remainiac-dominated part of The Blob that has undermined the road to the sunlit uplands.

Then the London School of Economics’ Centre for Economic Reform calculated that Brexit is costing the UK 5.5% of its economy. A sure sign that it too is a left-leaning, woke, Remainiac-dominated part of The Blob that has undermined the road to the sunlit uplands.

Then the National Institute for Economic and Social Research calculated that Brexit is costing 5-6% of gross domestic product (GDP). Another sure sign of another left-leaning, woke, Remainiac-dominated part of The Blob that has undermined the road to the sunlit uplands

Now the investment bank Goldman Sachs has done its own research, which has found that Brexit is costing the UK 5% of GDP. A sure sign that… well, you know the rest by now.

The really interesting thing about these reputable organisations is that they have all done their own homework to reach pretty much the same conclusions. They have openly explained their assumptions and calculations and their conclusions. Much of their research and data has been peer-reviewed. Several have used very similar well-proven models, but independently of each other. Yet they are all saying much the same thing.

Goldman’s analysis is based on creating a doppelganger economic model which shadows how the UK used to perform, and then shows how it has actually performed after Brexit, in comparison with the doppelgänger.

All also found pretty much the same reasons for the terrible price of Brexit. Worse trade, lower investment, and huge changes to immigration.
The UK government declared a trade war on itself, placed huge barriers in the way of its economy and businesses and then sat back and watched the damage mount up, while doing nothing to help.

Just today, business secretary Kemi Badenoch announced she is going to negotiate new “memorandums of understanding” with independent US states such as Oregon. These are worthless, economically meaningless pieces of paper, but they are all this government has. So, they are touted as some equivalent to membership of the EU’s Single Market. This is government by smoke and mirrors.

Meanwhile, the Brexit loons stick their fingers in their ears and lie to us and themselves about the obvious. Lie about the quality of the research, lie about the motives and qualifications of the authors, lie about the missing money, the lost tax receipts, the lost investment, and weak trade.

Let us not beat about the bush, the government must have done its own calculations. HM Treasury must have researched this itself a dozen times, the Bank of England will have, the Department for Business must have.

If the government has well-researched, peer-reviewed, expert analysis that shows the UK is doing better because of Brexit or will do better or even is doing exactly the same as it did before Brexit; they should publish it right now.

But they won’t because they don’t have it. In fact, I am pretty sure they have research which says exactly what Goldman Sachs says, “The UK has significantly underperformed other advanced economies since the 2016 EU referendum.”

Ahead of a general election, surely they should be able to prove their critics wrong?