Brexit backlash? World’s sales to UK exceed EU27's for 1st time since records began
EU27’s sales to UK continue to drop fast – now below 50% of all imports
© Facts4EU.Org 2021
Should the EU27 begin to be worried that its anti-British stance will impact EU27 jobs?
The latest trade bulletin from the UK’s Office for National Statistics covering Q1 (Jan-Mar 2021) contains some very interesting information. Within their commentary is the following:-
“Quarter 1 2021 is the first quarter since records began in January 1997 that imports of goods from non-EU countries are higher than from EU countries.”
- Quarterly bulletin on UK trade, ONS, 12 May 2021
In what follows, we have analysed official trade data going back to January 2019, before Covid and before the United Kingdom left the European Union. Specifically we looked at one key question.
Is Brexit Britain now buying less from the EU, compared to what it buys from the Rest of the World?
The answer is: YES
Brexit Facts4EU.Org Summary
Two years of falling UK purchases from the EU27
- In Q1 2019, 55.9% of all the imported goods we bought came from the EU27
- In Q1 2020, 52.9% of all the imported goods we bought came from the EU27
- In Q1 2021, 48.7% of all the imported goods we bought came from the EU27
© Brexit Facts4EU.Org - click to enlarge
[Source: Office for National Statistics, Trade Bulletin published May 2021, and previous bulletins.]
The simple fact is that the UK is buying less and less from the EU27, and more and more from the Rest of the World
The trend we have shown above is interesting – both in terms of the latest quarter’s figures but also when looking at the fall over the past two years.
Short-term:The last three months’ figures show that the EU27’s sales to the UK have fallen by a (statistically significant) 4% since the UK finally departed the EU on 31 December 2020. This might partly be explained by some stockpiling carried out by British importers in Q4 2020.
Longer term: What is harder for the EU to explain is why this trend started before the inevitable ‘Brexit effect’. Comparing the first quarter of 2021 with the same quarter two years ago, we see a 7% fall in the proportion of EU27 goods being bought, compared to goods from the Rest of the World.
Facts4EU.Org is considering running a short online poll to test views on buying British.
Please let us know if you would like us to do this.
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How much is this costing the EU27?
Putting aside percentages, Facts4EU.Org took a snapshot of the total value of the month’s sales to the UK in March 2021 by EU27 countries and non-EU countries (RoW), compared to the pre-Covid days of March 2019.
It is important to stress that this is only a snapshot of one month’s figures and might be wholly unrepresentative, which is why we showed the quarterly figures above. That said, it shows that the fall in sales to the UK by the EU27 cannot be explained simply by Covid.
Brexit Facts4EU.Org Summary
EU27’s monthly sales to UK fell by £7.4 billion, comparing March 2021 to March 2019
Rest of World’s monthly sales increased by £0.4 billion, despite Covid
- EU27’s sales to the UK in March 2019: £25.2 bn
- EU27’s sales to the UK in March 2021: £17.8 bn (-29.4%)
- RoW’s sales to the UK in March 2019: £18.9 bn
- RoW’s sales to the UK in March 2021: £19.3 bn (+2.1%)
© Brexit Facts4EU.Org - click to enlarge
[Source: Office for National Statistics, Trade Bulletin published May 2021, and previous bulletins.]
Are the British starting to react to the hostile behaviour of the EU to its near-neighbour?
What our second chart above shows is that the total value of imports of goods fell in March 2021 compared to two years earlier. The significant thing is that all the fall was down to buying less from the EU. The UK actually bought more in monetary terms from the Rest of the World, despite Covid.
Observations
For how long can the EU continue to raid its "Treasure Island"?
Over the past few years we have reported that officials in some EU countries (particularly Germany) have referred to the United Kingdom as ‘Treasure Island’. The reason for this is simple. We buy so much from them. Far more than they buy from us, as we have reported in detail many times.
The interesting question now is the extent to which British consumers will react to the hostility of the EU machine to the UK since the EU Referendum and Brexit, by choosing to buy British or non-EU products, in preference to those from the EU27.
Certainly we have been receiving many messages from readers, stating categorically that they will never buy EU27 products whilst the attitude and behaviours of the current EU Commission, EU Council, and EU Parliament continue. This seems to extend from supermarket shopping to cars. We have also heard from business people who tell us that they are now looking to source products globally and to replace EU suppliers.
Facts4EU.Org is considering running a short online poll to test views.
Please let us know if you would like us to do this.
(And if could donate something to help sponsor this work, we will credit you unless you want to remain anonymous.)
Statistics in a Covid climate
In these times of Covid, responsible think-tanks such as Facts4EU.Org try to make sense of data which has naturally been impacted by lockdowns and all the other measures which have consumed our lives since early last year. Normal comparisons from one quarter to the next, or from one year to the next, become unreliable with trade and many other metrics fluctuating wildly.
What we have shown is a clear trend which started before Covid and which pre-dates the UK’s exit from the EU. We could of course have looked merely at the trade figures for Q1 2021 compared to the previous quarter (Q4 2020), but this would have included the period when some British companies were stockpiling ahead of the UK’s full exit from the EU at the end of last year. Unsurprisingly the drop is more severe in this case.
Instead we went back to 2019. Whilst we would still put a note of caution on these figures as a result of all the volatility, two years of data is reasonable. World trade almost everywhere has suffered, but it’s the proportionate relationship between the UK’s purchases from the EU and from the Rest of the World which is perhaps interesting.
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[ Sources: UK's Office for National Statistics ] Politicians and journalists can contact us for details, as ever.
Brexit Facts4EU.Org, Sun 30 May 2021
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