How will we know whether we are better or worse off out of the EU? We won't!

Now that we know we are going to be leaving the EU how are things going to pan out over the next decade or so? I've said previously that the only way I could see the country being brought back together again would be if we exited the EU. Had we stayed a large proportion of the population would have felt bitterness and resentment over the failure to implement the outcome of the referendum. We would have had Brexit Party successes in elections and the prospect of Farage making permanent mischief at the European Parliament. Brexit would be like a wrecking ball at elections, drowning out debate as it has for so long already. It would have been a running sore. Of course, as we leave, Remain supporters will feel sadness and regret and many of us will have concerns about how things will pan out. But it already feels as if a boil has been lanced. The topic of conversation has moved on and maybe now the nation, or at least most of it, will also.

Remainers are wont to point out that most economists say we'll be worse off outside the EU than we would have been in it. Well, most economists say that but they are forecasts which are often for the birds or at least often incorrect. And I've pointed out before that what they are actually saying is that we'll be better off than now but not by as much as we might have been. Moreover, the difference will be small and so it will be difficult to discern. Indeed, if we're better off than now we'll feel better off and we probably won't miss what we have never had.

I've now seen figures which say exactly that and more. The Centre for Economics and Business Research is an independent London-based economics consultancy known for its commentaries on the UK and global economies. They earn their corn producing reports for businesses, other economic consultancies and organisations such as the Bank of England, HM Treasury and the European Commission. So it is far from a pro-Brexit think tank. The CEBR publishes an annual World Economic League Table covering 192 countries and looking ahead more than a decade. I recently read a summary of the CEBR's latest long range forecasts which indicate their expectation that the UK's trend growth is likely to be about the same as Germany's, somewhat higher than France's and a large amount higher than Italy's. They expect the UK economy to be about 25% bigger by 2034 than it is now.

To obtain the full report you have to shell out £200. But you can download a free executive summary from their website, which I did. I couldn't verify the numbers quoted above but I don't doubt they are quoted correctly (as opposed to correct). However, it is very interesting that the CEBR should be so bearish about the EU's major economies. The exec summary does comment on the UK and Brexit saying the impact "will be less than feared". Specifically they had forecast that the UK would lag behind France for 5 years whereas they now expect the UK to overtake France again as soon as this year "driven by the UK's particular blend of the tech sector and the creative sector which the CEBR has called The Flat White Economy and by the probability of a fairly soft Brexit".

These comments will have preceded the recent general election which I would expect to have made their view more positive.

Of course there will be some recalcitrants who will blame everything that happens that they don't happen to like on the fact that we've left the EU. But what the experts are saying is clear: we'll be worse off than we might have been if we'd stayed in the EU but we'll still grow as much as Germany and more than France. If that turns out to be true we won't feel worse off (because we won't be) and none of the stats would make it look like we've taken the wrong decision. There'll just be a diminishing legion of remainers claiming we'd have been even better off if we'd have stayed with no tangible evidence to point to other than forecasts from a decade or more previously. Everyone will soon lose interest listening to that.

And so it will come to pass that the nation will move on and our membership of the EU will become a history lesson rather than an active political debate. Time will tell, but I have some optimism.

P.S. The CEBR report has lots of other interesting stuff. For example, India, having overtaken the UK and France to become the world's fifth largest economy is expected to become the third largest by 2034. That's not much of a surprise, but what I hadn't realised was that the Indian economy was larger than the UK's until 1906 and the French economy was smaller than India's until 1951.