Hi
From the article
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/06/02/why-the-london-stock-exchange-
lost-two-thirds-of-its-activity/afebe2aa-013b-11ee-9eb0-6c94dcb16fcf_story.html
The article also says that Paris overtook London as the biggest European
Stock Exchange in 2022.
The Express is talking about the number of investments, the Washington Post was talking about the size of investments.
I find it very difficult to compare like with like as media have their own take on things.
Looks like this guy has done his homework and requested FOI’s to how they came to their figures
With 40 members of staff and an annual budget of £3.9 million, the Office of Budgetary Responsibility is one of our smaller Quangos, yet among the most powerful. Mere politicians are expected to defer to it – a brief episode of insubordination from Kwasi Kwarteng led to dire retribution. Invariably the OBR is described as “impartial” – though Guido Fawkes has noted it is run by protégés of Torsten Bell, who was Labour’s Director of Policy under Ed Miliband. Though the OBR’s economic forecasts are treated with great deference they often turn out to be wildly wrong.
One of the well-publicised claims from the OBR is that Brexit will result in the UK economy being four per cent smaller “in the medium term” than it otherwise would have been. Given there are so many other factors involved, these claims are impossible to fully prove or disprove. The dire warnings from The Treasury during the referendum did not transpire. Sarah Beament, writing on this site, has pointed out that since 2016 “the UK economy has grown as much as, or more than, all G7 European peers.” The IMF forecasts that this will continue. “That’s despite Brexit,” the remainers quickly retort.
The Centre for European Reform put out a report last year estimating that UK GDP is 5.2 per cent lower due to Brexit. Dr Graham Gudgin, the Chief Economic Adviser to Policy Exchange, rebutted its “use of an implausible and flawed methodology to draw premature conclusions.” Gudgin felt that “a more plausible comparison, between the UK and the other G7 countries, shows no visible impact from Brexit at all.”
Jonathan Portes, of UK in a Changing Europe, says the costs have amounted to around 2.5 per cent of lost GDP. During the same conference, Julian Jessop of the Institute of Economic Affairs said GDP was around one per cent smaller than it would have been, but added that “the short-term impact was always going be negative, before the benefits of bespoke regulation and reduced trade barriers with the rest of the world kicked in.”
The EU has already changed significantly since 2016. So for a valid comparison we need to consider what it would be like for the UK being a member now, rather than then. Rather harder would be to consider what it would be like in five, 10 or 15 years. Similarly, just because Brexit gives us opportunities for deregulation and free trade, the extent and pace with which those opportunities are taken is a matter of choice.
Still, since the OBR had decided to enter into this territory, I thought it would be useful to discover more about their assumptions. Had they given due consideration to the advantages as well as the disadvantages? In the first Freedom of Information request, I asked:
This FOI request relates to the Edinburgh Reforms, the Government’s plans regarding “repealing and replacing EU-era Solvency II – the rules governing insurers’ balance sheets which is expected to unlock over £100 billion of private investment for productive assets such as UK infrastructure.”
Please advise:
What account of the Edinburgh Reforms have you taken, so far, in producing your analysis and writing about the potential effects of Brexit on the economy and public finances?
What account of the Edinburgh Reforms do you plan to take in producing your analysis and writing about the potential effects of Brexit on the economy and public finances?
Then I asked the equivalent questions about “the UK’s accession to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership.”
Next, it was the changes to procurement legislation.
The last query I put in concerned the EU Stimulus Package. It has been estimated that had we been EU members, the UK would have been liable to contribute £191 billion to this fund. Had they taken that into account in their calculations about whether we would have been richer in the EU.
In its response, the OBR said:
“In the case of the CPTPP, we have not produced a forecast since the agreement was announced, although we are aware of the UK government’s published estimate of the potential impact on UK GDP. We have not made any explicit changes to the forecast for the ‘Edinburgh reforms’. The Procurement Bill continues to make its way through the legislative process and so remains incomplete. We have not taken any explicit judgements for its effect on the economic and fiscal forecasts. We have not considered any impact of the EU stimulus bill as it is not a policy that directly affects the UK public finances, other than via its impact on our forecast for global GDP and exchange rates which is not separably identifiable.”
It added:
“Our March forecast incorporates our judgement that the post-Brexit trading relationship between the UK and EU, as set out in the ‘Trade and Cooperation Agreement’ (TCA) that came into effect on 1 January 2021, will reduce long-run productivity by 4 per cent relative to remaining in the EU.
“We do not attempt to track the counterfactual path for the UK had we remained in the EU as we are legally obliged to produce forecasts on the basis of current government policy (and are specifically forbidden to look at alternatives). As a result, we do not have any information on how any policy changes might have impacted the UK had we remained a member of the EU.”
So when it comes to trade with the EU the OBR cheerfully comes up with a figure “relative to remaining in the EU”. But when it comes to dodging the bullet of paying another £191 billion into the EU, it does “not attempt to track the counterfactual path”.
The OBR comment on CPTPP – “we are aware of the UK government’s published estimate of the potential impact on UK GDP” sounds like a sneering reference to the claim, highlighted by the BBC, that it would only boost growth by 0.08 per cent. That figure was indeed taken from an official analysis. But that estimate (from a couple of years ago) was for “static modelling” to increase growth by £3.3 billion. The report added that “this increase is not an economic forecast… UK exports have the potential to grow by 65% by 2030, not included in the static estimates…For example, as CPTPP expands to include Thailand and South Korea, the impact on UK GDP rises from +1.8bn to +£5.5bn.” So the 0.08 per cent figure is a complete misrepresentation.
As Greg Hands wrote on this site, CPTPP has: “Half a billion consumers. A combined GDP of £9 trillion. A naturally pro-free trade club.” To ignore the benefit to our economy of joining it, or to suggest the benefit will be negligible, is quite absurd. But that is the way to fit the OBR narrative.
When it comes to the Edinburgh Reforms and the procurement changes – both likely to have hugely positive financial impact – the OBR admits to completely ignoring them.
No matter how detailed and sophisticated the OBR’s computer modelling might be we come up against “garbage in, garbage out” as the American computer technicians put it. With the wrong, or incomplete inputs, the outputs will be wrong. With the allegiances of its staff, confirmation bias from the OBR is scarcely a surprise. Nor that its forecasts tend to be even more wayward than those from the alphabet soup of its rivals.
Each week I suppose I could send the OBR more FOI requests as further Brexit freedoms are seized. What about the likely benefit of a free trade deal with Switzerland? Or saving businesses £1 billion a year by reduced reporting requirements on working hours? Or the £180 million boost to our wine industry by scrapping red tape?
We shall see what reality brings us in the years and decades to come. In the interim, the media and the political class should treat the OBR with a bit more scepticism.
The more information that passes through here, the less gets resolved. 
Life’s too short to read that !
However U.K. economy is healthier than Russia and it’s sanctions 
Russia isn’t a G7 member at this time.
I’m still of the opinion, the UK economy has not performed well since Brexit.
So all the money is gone?
The chemical industry is an example. more than 18 months of negotiations between industry reps and the government over building a regulatory system. The UK quit the EU’s “Reach” chemical management system but has delayed it’s own arrangements as it would cost the industry £2bn to duplicate data already held in Brussels. Registration of 22,400 chemicals in a duplicate UK system run by the Health & Safety Exec is in limbo. Most of these chemicals have already passed safety tests in the EU but now there is a legal barrier which means the data of the regs is not available to the UK regulator. A similar system to introduce a UK version of “Reach” could cost the industry £billions. Due to delays and extensions it’s going to take between 3 and 7 years to sort this out (depending on the chemical type).
That’s a summary of an article in the printed version of the FT weekend (27/28 May).
That’s just an example. I’m pretty sure there are similar problems in pretty much every industrial sector. 95 % of manufactured goods contain chemicals. If you look at the economy overall, the process of moving to new legal frameworks is extreme and no wonder the price of goods is going through the roof.
Hi
There are many different reasons for voting Remain and Leave.
It was never a simple binary choice, it was always going to be complex.
I did not believe that Brexit would give any financial benefits at all.
I always knew it was going to cost the UK and in particular me.
I simply did not want further Integration.
I had no objection to the Common Market at all, quite happy with that.
What I was not happy with was Merkel opening the Borders with absolutely no regard for anyone else.
It was purely a Political Ploy to get what she wanted next, which was to be in charge of the UN.
The Secretary General.
The UK took in 20,000 genuine refugees each year, all vetted abroad, in the camps and very genuine.
I have no problem with that at all, great people who wanted to help us identify the baddies.
They hated ISIS with a vengeance.
Merkel let everyone in, they could not believe their luck.,
She took what she wanted, those who were an advantage for Germany.
, she just dumped the rest and let them loose in the EU.
France had second best, they took what they wanted and left the remainder out.
France deported over 10,000 Roma at the same time, the ECHR said nothing.
The Germans can deport those they do not want in weeks.
This is permissible under EU Rules, our Government decided not to and decide that the ECHR could overrule UK Law.
A great shock to me, always used to simply putting them back on the Ferry they came in on and bye bye.
We have very weak and disorganised Politicians.
They not only stopped us deporting them straight away, they also abolished the funding for joint operations to catch and deport them, our own Politicians instructed that illegals had to be released on bail with no checks.
That is the reality of life, that is why Enforcement in the nigh time, when we used to catch them stopped as the overtime was stopped.
There is no chance at all of getting full on Enforcement Officers, with all the powers working at nights for free and then released the illegals on Bail, without Charge.
That is not only a complete waste of money, it also puts our females at risk from the Radicals.
A Son, Brother and Dad, I object to this , they are not invulnerable.
The UK economy is doing far better than the EU. Germany is in recession, don’t get fooled by the remain propaganda from The BBC, ITV, Guardian etc.
The impact we are seeing to economies all over the world is nothing to do with Brexit and everything to do with the stupid lockdown rules.
It wouldn’t cost anything like 2 billion to replicate data held in Brussels. It’s a fantasy and it’s not needed. UK companies can still register for EU-REACH and EU companies can complete their UK registration here.
Nothing has changed - we do not need EU-REACH here because they aren’t our regulations, they are the EU’s. We have our own - UK REACH.
It was the FT that spread the fake news about the UK banks leaving for Frankfurt remember ?
In other words: “do as I do, only read articles in the sources that write what I want to read and broadcast what I want to hear. If you do this, like me, you’ll come to believe that Brexit has been a roaring success, that the UK economy is stronger than anywhere else, that inflation is tumbling faster in the UK that anywhere else. Couldn’t be better. And you’ll also come to realise that where there are problems (health service, social care, condition of our roads, local authorities going bankrupt, etc.) this is the fault of socialist illegal immigrants. Who are probably LBGT+”
And if we all do this there’d be no more silly arguments on this forum.
And of course do not forget to touch the screen, look into my eyes and believe strongly.
That’s why I like listening to debates on things rather than just listening to one point of view and what I did all through the Brexit debate and how I came to my conclusion.
We haven’t ripped up all the regulations as Strathmore stated. I’ve no idea regarding the chemicals and I’m sure you haven’t either and I wouldn’t profess I did know just because I read an article.
Your out-crazying yourself again.
If you haven’t got a sensible answer you just make things up and pretend its real.
it was just an example of the hurdles industries are facing. It’s real and I’ve just posted the original impact assessment by DEFRA if you’re interested in knowing more.
Annie I know there will be problems that’s why I’m glad they haven’t ripped them all up like Strathmore stated they had any changes should be done with consultations, that’s where I’m different to Bread.
For clarity, I know that the EU standards bill was shelved. But it was seriously proposed and that included simply canning the lot and decisions made in a few months with no parliamentary scrutiny - just the decisions of ministers. And it is seriously supported by people who are desperate to find a single benefit from Brexit. They think reducing UK regulation and standards will be a means to success - but they ignore the risks and the downside.
Now, why are you so frequently happy to share articles in support of your views but then someone else does that you basically say “you don’t know anything about this, you’ve just copied an article, so stay quiet”. Seems very rich given your own copy&paste posts.
The general gist of that, Annie is that because the civil service is so utterly useless at getting things done, they are in danger of missing their own (legal) deadlines (2027). A suggestion is to replace UK Reach with a system that would be quicker to perform registrations to help speed things up (I can imagine UK and EU Reach being old systems prone to a huge amount of admin burden through lack of integration with other systems but thats my own opinion).
Companies exporting into the UK need to register the shipments in the UK Reach system and pay the registration fee like they do for any other country. Before Brexit this was done in the EU Reach system but now the UK has left, the 27 need to register and pay for the registrations with the UK Reach system - this way the UK gets the money from the registrations (instead of the EU) where before, when the UK was in the EU our shipments from and to the EU went to the EU Reach system.
Why is this an issue ?
