Hilary Benn's Brexit thread will leave you shaking with anger

On the third anniversary of the UK leaving the EU, Rishi Sunak claimed the country had taken “huge strides” in taking advantage of the opportunities opened up by Brexit.

Really?

David Lammy, MP said there was a need to “recognise the damage the Government’s bad Brexit deal has done to our economy”.

Liberal Democrat Treasury spokeswoman Sarah Olney, MP for Richmond Park, said: “Why should the public believe anything this Conservative Government says on the economy when it can’t be open and honest about the cost of Brexit.”

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So how is it going?

Hilary Benn’s thread about how it is going is blistering and is hard to read,

1. So, on the third anniversary of leaving the EU, how is Brexit going? A thread.
— Hilary Benn (@hilarybennmp) January 31, 2023

2. It was hard at first to disentangle the impact on the economy of Covid as opposed to Brexit. But now things are much clearer. Leaving the EU has been bad for the economy and bad for trade. British businesses exporting to the EU now face new costs, paperwork and red tape.
— Hilary Benn (@hilarybennmp) January 31, 2023

3. SMEs have been particularly affected. According to HMRC, the total number of UK businesses exporting goods to the EU fell by a truly astonishing 33 per cent between 2020 and 2021. In the main these were small businesses that gave up in the face of all the new Brexit red tape.
— Hilary Benn (@hilarybennmp) January 31, 2023

4. The UK is forecast by the IMF to be the only G7 country with negative growth this year and we are the only G7 country that still has a smaller economy than before Covid. Bloomberg Economics says that Brexit is costing the UK economy £100 billion a year.
— Hilary Benn (@hilarybennmp) January 31, 2023

5. The OBR estimates that both exports and imports will be around 15% lower in the long run than if the UK had remained in the EU. Brexit will also reduce long-run productivity by 4 per cent. As a result, it says the UK has “missed out on much of the recovery in global trade.”
— Hilary Benn (@hilarybennmp) January 31, 2023

6. And while all these costs have been imposed on British businesses trying to export to the EU, the Government has repeatedly delayed implementing full checks on goods coming in from the EU because it is afraid of the consequences in the form of shortages and delays.
— Hilary Benn (@hilarybennmp) January 31, 2023

7. What about new trade deals? Most have simply replicated what we already had in the EU. The two new ones – with Australia and New Zealand – are small and the former Environment Secretary George Eustice has described the Australia agreement as “not actually a very good deal”.
— Hilary Benn (@hilarybennmp) January 31, 2023

8. And what of the promised trade deal with the USA? Nowhere in sight. At a time when we need all the economic growth we can get, making trade more difficult with your largest trading partner – the EU – is not a very good idea.
— Hilary Benn (@hilarybennmp) January 31, 2023

9. Employers say how hard it is to find workers, especially in areas like catering, hospitality, food and farming. There are other effects as well. Musicians and other performers have found that new costs and visa red tape make touring in the EU more difficult.
— Hilary Benn (@hilarybennmp) January 31, 2023

10.

10. Then there are the things the Government has tried to do which they claim will be a Brexit benefit but are actually counterproductive.
— Hilary Benn (@hilarybennmp) January 31, 2023

11.

11. Ministers want a British version of the EU REACH chemical regulations but have now delayed this until 2025. The British chemicals industry says a British REACH would entail enormous costs for no benefit whatsoever.
— Hilary Benn (@hilarybennmp) January 31, 2023

12.

12. Ministers have now twice delayed the introduction of a UKCA mark to replace the familiar CE mark on products because businesses are asking “what is the point?”
— Hilary Benn (@hilarybennmp) January 31, 2023

13.

13. The EU Retained Law Bill is planning to put a sunset clause on all EU-derived legislation unless it is saved. The result? Total confusion on the part of businesses and the public as to what laws and regulations will apply in the UK from the beginning of next year.
— Hilary Benn (@hilarybennmp) January 31, 2023

14.

14. And our relationship with the EU has been damaged by the Northern Ireland Protocol row. I won't go into detail here about the problems there are with it and how to fix them – https://t.co/jTUNXFwEf0 – but until we do so there will be very little chance of restoring trust.
— Hilary Benn (@hilarybennmp) January 31, 2023

15.

15. In the face of all this evidence, it is striking that those who argued that Brexit would benefit us economically now try and pin the blame on something or someone else as they struggle to understand why, inevitably, it’s all gone wrong.
— Hilary Benn (@hilarybennmp) January 31, 2023

16.

16. And what do the public make of it ? Well, opinion is still divided and for many, Brexit was about sovereignty and not the economy. But we have seen a marked increase in the percentage of people who now say that Brexit was a mistake, including a growing number of Leave voters.
— Hilary Benn (@hilarybennmp) January 31, 2023

17.

17. We can't, however, just reverse what has happened and it would not make sense at the next election to divide the nation once again over Europe. What we must do is to start talking about a new, albeit different, relationship with the EU. But that’s for another thread.

end
— Hilary Benn (@hilarybennmp) January 31, 2023