A few initial thoughts on the government's updated impact assessments (assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/upl…).
A summary of the scenarios – above the 0, the benefits of Brexit, including new trade deals. Below the 0, the costs of Brexit, such as barriers to trade (i.e. friction):
A summary of the scenarios – above the 0, the benefits of Brexit, including new trade deals. Below the 0, the costs of Brexit, such as barriers to trade (i.e. friction):
2. The gov't has chosen to model Chequers, which the EU has already rejected. This is mostly interesting because it shows that even in the "basket full of cherries fantasy scenario", the UK still ends up worse off that inside the EU.
3. The gov't doesn't seem to have modelled the backstop, or the UK staying in a customs union, as a scenario, which is odd given that it's more likely than the already rejected chequers
4. Unsurprisingly () the gov't has decided to not include in its analysis the impact of ending freedom of movement and the "tens of thousands" migration target. But the Jan. document suggests it has looked at and holds this information:
(OBR data has also repeatedly shown that cutting migration levels to those targeted by the gov't would lower economic output. eg theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/d…)
This is an interesting table: UK-EU trade volumes will fall by a lot more than UK-rest of world trade volumes would rise after Brexit:
Every single UK region, and the overwhelming majority of sectors will be worse off under all post-Brexit scenarios:
Here we go: trade deals with the US, Australia, New Zealand, and other members of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership would add a whopping 0.1%-0.2% of GDP
It won't fit on the side of a bus, but here's a great little detail: if net migration from the EU drops to 0, the cost of extra borrowing from having scared EU nationals away + payments into EU programmes would be greater than any EU budget savings
Finally, a comparison of models and forecasts - spot the odd one out:
