2016 : Remainers threatened voters with immediate recession – what happened?

Facts4EU summarises 2016-2022 UK economic growth for Brexiteers and Remainer-Rejoiners

Montage © Facts4EU.Org 2023

When will anyone responsible ever apologise to the British people for Project Fear?

One of the greatest propaganda campaigns in British history was launched on the British people ahead of the EU Referendum in June 2016. It failed, but has anyone ever been held accountable?

The 2016 Remainer government of David Cameron and George Osborne, the Treasury, the Remain campaign, (and almost every ‘expert’ they could find) issued dire warnings that a recession would start immediately following a vote to leave the EU.

This recession never materialised.

Brexit Facts4EU.Org Summary

UK growth 2016 – 2022

2016 : No recession
2017 : No recession
2018 : No recession
2019 : No recession
2020 : Lockdowns recession
2021 : No recession
2022 : No recession

[Source: Latest ONS official data.]

The UK economy compared with the G7 group of developed nations in the last seven years

What follows must be seen against the Remainer government, Remain campaigns, and almost every 'expert' organisation they could find predicting that the UK economy would immediately "fall off a cliff" if the public voted to leave the EU.

The chart below shows that it didn't.

Brexit Facts4EU.Org Summary

UK growth compared to the G7 group of nations, 2016 – 2022

In the last seven years since the EU Referendum :-

The UK beat the G7's average growth five out of seven times
The UK beat Germany four times
The UK beat France four times
The UK beat Italy six times
The UK came top in the two years since the UK exited the EU

[Source: Latest OECD official data.]

Here is some of what the British public were threatened with if they voted 'Leave'

Enormously long technical documents were produced by the Government, the Treasury, the Bank of England and many others, all telling the public that the UK economy would “fall off a cliff” immediately, in the event of a vote to Leave the EU.

The public was told it would not have to wait. The impact would be severe and it would hit immediately. Here is a very small, random selection.

The relentless onslaught on the public by the Remainer Establishment

“A vote to leave would cause an immediate and profound economic shock creating instability and uncertainty which would be compounded by the complex and interdependent negotiations that would follow. The central conclusion of the analysis is that the effect of this profound shock would be to push the UK into recession and lead to a sharp rise in unemployment.”
- HM Treasury, May 2016

“We have looked at all the scenarios. We have done our homework and we haven’t found anything positive to say about a Brexit vote.”
- Christine Lagarde, International Monetary Fund (IMF), Fri 13 May 2016

“With exactly one month to go to the referendum, the British people must ask themselves this question: can we knowingly vote for a recession? Does Britain really want this DIY recession? Because that’s what the evidence shows we’ll get if we vote to leave the EU.”
- Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne, 23 May 2016

“The UK would be permanently poorer if it left the EU and adopted any of these models.”
“Annual loss of GDP per household would be £4,300”
- HM Treasury report, long-term economic impact of leaving the EU, April 2016
(It was only in the small print that they said this was after 15 years. HMT can’t even forecast accurately one year ahead, let alone 15 years’ time.)

“The analysis in this document comes to a clear central conclusion:a vote to leave would represent an immediate and profound shock to our economy. That shock would push our economy into a recession and lead to an increase in unemployment of around 500,000”
- George Osborne in HM Treasury report, immediate economic impact of leaving the EU, 23 May 2016

No recession caused by the Leave vote, 2 million more employed, not 520,000 jobs lost

The so-called ‘experts’ could not have been more wrong. In some cases – as with employment – the official figures show that the UK has done the polar opposite of what all these ‘experts’ predicted – by a factor of four.

Some might say the job losses which should have occurred should have been the positions of the thousands of economists, functionaries and politicians who were responsible for this grievous attempt to mislead the British public. And if they truly believed what they had been saying they should have resigned on principle, on the grounds of incompetence.

To the best of our knowledge, not one of them did so.

We must remember this

Choppy waters lie ahead. The UK is highly unlikely to top the G7 leaderboard in 2023 but there are other causes for this. Remember one thing: In the two years since the UK (excluding NI) left the European Union, (2021 and 2022), the UK has been the fastest-growing economy in the G7 group of developed nations.

Observations

The public need to know these facts and if we don't publish them who will? The public also deserve an apology from those who misled them. Almost seven years on and we’re still waiting.

These errors were not minor. They were not "within normal margins of statistical error". These predictions on recessions were devastatingly wrong. They are on a par with a car worker going to do his or her job on the Nissan production line in the morning and proudly watching a penny farthing bicycle roll off at the other end. We doubt he or she would keep that job for long.

The supreme irony of all of this is that no-one we know who voted to leave the EU did so primarily on economic grounds.

“It wasn’t the economy, stupid”, to paraphrase former President Bill Clinton quoting Carville. It was about sovereignty and the ability to run our own affairs in our own interests.

And this is something we are all still waiting for, with increasing impatience. Prime Minister please take note.

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[ Sources: Office for National Statistics | OECD | IMF | BoE | HM Treasury ] Politicians and journalists can contact us for details, as ever.

Brexit Facts4EU.Org, Tues 21 Feb 2023

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Reader Comments 53

1. Sparky , Tuesday, February 21, 2023, 06:42:

A much more important question is where are the promised economic benefits of Brexit? USA trade deal, Cakey EU deal, sunlit uplands.
Yes the Leave campaign was much stronger than the Remain. BJ, DomC and Gove did a much better job. They also had a much easier task because they could use false promises and slogans that were difficult to disprove. The economic arguments from Remain were boring and dismissed. It was only after the referendum that comment like it will take years before we see benefits started to materialise from the likes of JRM.
Good analysis of the economic damage of Brexit from the Guardian on 12.2.23 "Disaster’ is right: Brexit is a self-inflicted wound that cuts dangerously deep" and BBC on 31.1.23 "What impact has Brexit had on the UK economy?"

2. Captain Thunderbolt , Tuesday, February 21, 2023, 08:19:

Sparky I have to disagree.
-
Remain actually had the easier campaign as it was a known quantity to remain in the ever closer union
-
The leave campaign had no authority to promise anything as the only one that could was the government and the government was pro-remain and thought that they would win the referendum easily hence why Cameron did not have a plan or idea if leave prevailed
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All the leave campaign could do was make ideas on a possible exit nothing else as it had no power to do anything

3. Sparky , Tuesday, February 21, 2023, 08:39:

2 CT The leave campaign had no authority to promise anything but they did. The unknown nature of what lies beyond Brexit provided the clever DommC to run a campaign that allowed people to make up their own version of Brexit. We still don't know where Brexit is taking the UK, Brexit was a campaign but no strategy or plan. The faces of BJ and Gove the day after the referendum results speaks volumes. I do agree to some extent re Cameron, if he had a plan it wasn't clear. Leave ran a much better campaign.

4. Gazzablack , Tuesday, February 21, 2023, 09:13:

1, sparky
Oh look a bit of reflection from sparkless.
Well it won't wash sparkless
.
The reason leave won was not because it's campaign was better, it was because the remain campaign was unable to provide any positive reasons to do so.
And that's because there were no positives available to the remain campaign.
.
Sorry sparkless but your memory is faulty. Nobody said we would have a trade deal with the USA, they said we COULD have our own trade deals with countries such as the USA.
And we have, up to 101 so far.
(Not to mention the state level deals being negotiated in the USA).
.
The phrase 'oven ready deal" was coined over two years AFTER the refedendum.
.
Truth be told, most leave voters had decided how they would vote long before any campaign started.
They knew how, if given the opportunity, they would vote in a referendum years before one was called.

5. Sparky , Tuesday, February 21, 2023, 09:56:

The Independent poll and the YouGov tracker show that people are disillusioned with Brexit, the disillusionment happened in a relatively short time because the benefits were over promised, wishful thinking and naivety.
UK needs to accept Brexit was a mistake, rejoining is a non starter, we wouldn't get the rebate and would have to adopt the Euro. We had a good deal with the EU (not perfect but it was good) and Brexit binned it.
It's a mess but how is it fixed. The stubbornness of ERG, DUP etc is holding fixing it back. Blaming rejoiners for the mess doesn't wash, BJ had a massive majority he could have pushed anything through using the whip. He did when it came to trying to save Owen Pattererson but that backfired because of the backlash and was the start of his downfall and realisation of his lies.
Enough for me today.

6. David Hurlbut , Tuesday, February 21, 2023, 11:53:

Replying to Sparky.
As has been stated under "Observations":- "...The supreme irony of all of this is that no-one we know who voted to leave the EU
did so primarily on economic grounds."
This is so true. I did not vote to leave on economic grounds.
I voted to prevent this country from becoming the North-West province of a United States of Europe.
If leaving the EU made this country economically poorer, my attitude to this is that it is better to be a poor, self-governing,
independent country than to be a rich province of a United States of Europe.
Independence is PRICELESS and worth far more than any economic benefits of being in the EU
In any case, I would argue that these days there are greater economic benefits to joining the trans-Pacific partnership - CPTPP.
However, the PRIMARY reason for voting to leave the EU is prevent this country from becoming the North-West province of a
United States of Europe.

7. Have You Wondered , Tuesday, February 21, 2023, 14:04:

.
6. David Hurlbut
.
"If leaving the EU made this country economically poorer, my attitude to this is that it is better to be a poor, self-governing,
independent country than to be a rich province of a United States of Europe."
.
I might alter "than to be a rich province of a United States of Europe."" to "than to be a rich province of a corrupt United States of Europe that will not benefit equally the electorate.""
.
Spot on.
.
Why does the UK (or any other nation) need another level of corruption, ineptitude and malfeasance above that which the UK has already?
.

8. Captain Thunderbolt , Tuesday, February 21, 2023, 14:30:

5. Sparky
No doubt that the NI protocol is deeply flawed but that was due to the little manoeuvre room given to BJ by parliament and the surrender act and the EU
-
No deal was allways better than a bad as we are seeing from the results. Here we see how pro remain right royally hobbled UK by tying up both hands when negotiating. Remain do not see how there own actions placed UK into a bad deal
-
What’s are your thoughts on fixing the problems?

9. Sparky , Tuesday, February 21, 2023, 15:30:

6 DH. That would have been an interesting campaign slogan "vote leave and the UK will be poorer". I accept that many of Facts4EU followers will agree with you that control was worth being poorer but it is unlikely to have won the referndum.
8 CT. I don't think BJ and chums gave much consideration regarding detail like NI. It was blind optimism that they could sort it out later. Re the "surrender act" BJ had a massive majority, he could have used the whip as he did with Patterson. Instead he tried to ignore parliament in the same way Charles I did in 1629, that didn't end well either.
On a visit to NI during the EU referendum, Boris Johnson said the border would be “absolutely unchanged.” He was right but neglected to say that there would be a border from GB to NI. No Deal would have put a border NI/Republic so was never a realistic proposition and the EU new it.
I think, (Nigel Farage and Kate Hoey have suggested it) that Leave thought the Republic of Ireland would leave the EU.
Fixing NI, I don't see any good outcomes. Being in the single market made open borders work for GB, NI and Republic.
1. Republic leaving EU - not happening.
2. UK rejoining EU - not happening
3. NI leaving UK - a serious possibility but will cause a lot of resentment and probably violence. UK would become GB.
4. NI independence from UK and EU - a possibility but economically unlikely.
5. UK softening stance on EU, commitment to alignment with EU negating need for borders, a strong possibility - Effectively BRINO but then what was the point of Brexit?
6. NI a satellite state of UK and EU - pretty much what it is now and what BJ agreed to.
7. ?
The sought after trade deals with USA and CPTTP which may provide some economic benefit are effectively stalled until NI is resolved but they won't compensate for leaving EU.
Do you see any other, more palatable solutions.

10. LuxuryBalloon , Tuesday, February 21, 2023, 15:40:

How much of the successes highlighted in this article (stellar growth last year, extremely low unemployment, no recession despite COVID and the war in Ukraine) are due to the fact we signed the withdrawal agreement and the trade and corporation agreement with the EU? These agreements came at a heavy price: a border down the Irish Sea and significant compromises for the fishing industry.
An alternative would be WTO, but we don’t know the economic impact of going WTO … accept that the current government appears scared of the prospects to go WTO.

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