Brexit in numbers

John Springford at the Centre for European Reform has done some fascinating modelling showing that UK trade was £16bn in January lower than a “synthetic” UK that remained in the single market and customs union. (This after Brexit had already led to a 10 per cent reduction in total UK goods trade since the referendum in 2016 to the end of last year).

He says these are indeed “very significant” effects that will feed through into the real economy over time, even though such modelling doesn’t tell you about local effects (where clusters of particular hard-hit industries are affected disproportionately) or how individual business will react.

...How all this plays locally and politically, only time will tell, but the overall numbers on Springford’s models are significantly negative.