Brexit Britain beats the EU on the three key economic measures

So why does the new Labour government keep talking us down?

Montage © Facts4EU.Org 2024

On inflation, on GDP, and on unemployment, the UK comes out on top

Facts4EU.Org presents the latest figures for the three key economic measures of inflation, GDP, and unemployment and compares the United Kingdom to the EU. These are the three key measures used by Eurostat – the EU Commission’s statistics agency – on its homepage.

There are hundreds of other measures used by economists, many of which are of little interest to the general public. The ones which almost everyone understands are :-

By how much are consumer prices increasing? (CPI inflation rate)
How much is our country’s economy growing? (GDP growth rate)
How many of our people are out of a job? (Unemployment rate)

Brexit Facts4EU.Org Summary

The United Kingdom versus the European Union – The UK wins easily

Comparing the EU’s three key measures to those of the UK, latest official figures, 2024

1. Inflation (CPI) May 2024

UK : 2.0%
EU : 2.6%

[Sources : ONS and EU Commission (Eurostat).]

2. GDP growth rate Q1 2024 (latest data)

UK : 0.7%
EU : 0.3%

[Sources : OECD and ONS.]

3. Unemployment rate, May 2024 (latest data)

UK : 4.4%
EU : 6.0%

[Sources : ONS and EU Commission (Eurostat).]

In Q1 this year the UK’s economic growth beat everyone

The latest economic figures are for Q1 (Jan-Mar 2024). The UK beat all the major players, as follows :-

Brexit Facts4EU.Org Summary

GDP growth, Q1 2024

UK : 0.7%
OECD : 0.4%
EU : 0.3%
USA : 0.3%
Germany : 0.2%
France : 0.2%
G7 : 0.2%
Japan : -0.5%

[Sources : OECD | ONS | House of Commons Library.]

We would ask readers if they remember the above news from any BBC reports they watched or read?

Finally, why are Sir Keir and the new Chancellor Rachel Reeves talking down the UK?

Here is the new Chancellor of the Exchequer making her first speech at the Treasury, on 08 July 2024.

The Chancellor’s first speech and she begins with a gross falsehood

Within 90 seconds of starting her speech, the Chancellor uttered an extraordinary statement.

“Whoever won the election would inherit the worst set of circumstances since the Second World War.”

We regret to say this is not just political hyperbole, it is a gross falsehood as any competent Chancellor with a knowledge of economic history would know. It isn’t even close to the facts and is thoroughly misleading to the British people.

The Chancellor went on.

“All governments face difficult decisions… Those decisions are made harder, however, by the absence of economic growth necessary not only to balance the books but also to improve living standards…. Growth requires hard choices. Choices that previous governments have shied away from. And it now falls to this new Labour government to fix the foundations.”

As we have shown above, the latest sets of figures for economic growth show the UK leading the developed world. And with inflation at the Bank of England’s target of 2% for two months running, and the unemployment rate in the EU 36% higher than the UK’s, the ‘foundations’ that Ms Reeves inherited would not appear to be as bad as she suggests.

We would add one thing. We have shown the revised video from where Ms Reeves starts speaking about what she inherited. In the original tweet she posted, if readers play the full video as presented, it takes almost 10 minutes of watching an empty stage before the Chancellor finally appears. If we did this each time we published a video we would be roundly condemned by readers.

Observations

As all readers know, key economic results can vary a great deal from month to month and quarter to quarter. That said, if we don’t celebrate when the results are good, when will we? The simple facts are that according to the latest official figures, the UK is outperforming the EU by some considerable margin.

Regarding Ms Reeves and Sir Keir Starmer, over and over again since the election we have heard them talk about the British economy being the worst they could have inherited. Not only is this categorically and demonstrably untrue, it does the country no service whatsoever, when these speech sound-bites are beamed around the world.

The Labour Leader and his Chancellor are no longer in Opposition, they are now in Government. What they say impacts the markets. We sincerely hope they learn this lesson very quickly, or they will talk down our international standing and risk significantly damaging the UK economy.

NOTICE : Facts4EU is now scaling back to publishing 5 days-a-week

For over eight years we have worked seven days-a-week. As far as we are aware we are the only organisation of our type to have done this. We are grateful to those of our readers who have made donations but sadly the level of our funding is now such that we must make it stretch for as long as we can. This means team members taking other paid work and reducing our output to five days-a-week.

Please, please help us to carry on our vital work in defence of independence, sovereignty, democracy and freedom by donating today. Thank you.

[ Sources: ONS | EU Commission | OECD ] Politicians and journalists can contact us for details, as ever.

Brexit Facts4EU.Org, Wed 24 Jul 2024

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Reader Comments 3

1. LuxuryBalloon , Wednesday, July 24, 2024, 12:00:

On the surface, our GDP, inflation and unemployment figures look great. But if you dig deeper you will realise that our GDP numbers have been propped up by massive immigration, our inflation was higher than in the EU zone last year, and unemployment figures are kept artificially low by a ballooning public sector funded by tax-payers money and a thriving carwash, nail parlour and motor bike courier service industry.

2. Christopher Cooper , Thursday, July 25, 2024, 09:29:

The Deutsch bank told its investors " if Britain leaves the EU, then invest" ( businesses will make more money)

3. Parky , Thursday, July 25, 2024, 17:40:

What I like about facts4eu is that it just presents well researched facts from official sources.
This is in contrast to the majority of counter arguments.
Massive immigration, ballooning public funding - does the UK have a monopoly on that and the rest of it ? I think it's fair to say "friends and neighbours" in political Europe share these issues.
Obviously last year's figures are last year's figures, which is not what the article is about, but adds weight to how well we have done since.
Who knows who said what to who and why at Deutsche Bank? Really not interested.
You're going to have to do better than that, unless you're just having fun.

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