EXCLUSIVE: Have you heard the one about the UK’s exports falling off a cliff since Brexit?

Rejoiner ‘fake news’ – We reveal what has happened since the UK exited the EU

Montage © Facts4EU.Org 2025

In an exclusive, Facts4EU destroys one of the last pieces of Rejoiner fake news

Today the Facts4EU think-tank can exclusively reveal the results of some research that will delight many people and devastate a few. ‘The few’ are the extremist Rejoiner community, but they will be in the minority.

Most readers will be delighted to learn of some positive news for the country, which puts to the sword a common misperception created by Rejoiner ‘fake news’. Regardless of which way readers voted in the EU Referendum, this is excellent news overall for the UK – and we would suggest this is what matters.

This is right up there with our recent “UK real GDP beats the EU’s finest” revelation

On 30 October the Facts4EU think-tank made the news and caused uproar in the extremist Rejoiner community when we proved that not only had the UK’s economy grown in real terms following the Referendum, but that it had grown faster than the EU’s Top 3 economies: Germany, France and Italy.

Using the official figures from the Office for National Statistics and the EU Commission’s Eurostat, we published one of the most devastating ‘at-a-glance’ charts in our 10-year history.

Brexit Britain's economic growth - The uncomfortable truth for the Chancellor

© Brexit Facts4EU.Org 2025 - click to enlarge
[Source(s) : Office for National Statistics | EU Commission (Eurostat), accessed Oct 2025]

Desperate, extremist Rejoiners tried everything to discredit the incontrovertible truth and as usual attempted to deflect onto anything they could think of.

The piece was very popular on the GB News digital edition, with many comments made about it.

Martin Daubney of GB News had pro-EU guests on his TV show in the afternoon, who exhibited this behaviour perfectly. In the end, nothing could escape the simple facts we published that day, showing the UK’s epic performance in comparison with our major competitors.

Today we go one step further and pour fuel on the Rejoiners’ fire

Most people’s impression is that the UK’s exports have fallen since we voted to leave the European Union. Indeed, this was one of the deflections used by a guest on the Daubney Show when Martin exclusively revealed our news.

Instead, we can exclusively reveal the truth about the UK’s export performance since we finally left the EU’s Customs Union and Single Market at the end of 2020. Far from falling by over 20%, which is the impression many people have, thanks to Rejoiners talking about parts of the UK’s export effort, the UK’s total exports have grown by a remarkable amount.

The UK’s total exports have grown by almost 19% in under five years, in real terms

The UK’s total exports are up by an astonishing 18.9% in under five years. We put this into perspective below the chart.

The proof, in one of our famous Facts4EU ‘at-a-glance’ charts

Real growth in total UK exports since the Referendum, Dec (Q4) 2020 - Sep (Q3) 2025
Latest official data from the ONS

FACT : Total exports from the UK are up by 18.9% in real terms since leaving the EU's Customs Union and Single Market on 31 Dec 2020.
FACT : The UK has had great success with trade deals, the impact of which is only just starting.
FACT : The increase would have been even higher without the government’s Net Zero policies.

Rachel Reeves must be wishing the entire economy was performing as well as the UK's exporters

UK's exporters have been outgrowing UK economy

The astonishing increase of 18.9% in under five years equates to a simple average of 4% (3.98%) per annum. To put this into context, the entire economy is expected to grow by only 1.3% this year. In effect this means the UK’s exporters have recently been outperforming the overall economy by three times at current rates.

The Chancellor must be wishing she could generate growth like that within the UK, but this she has singularly been unable to do.

We will be publishing our final 'GB News Pre-Budget Special' this Thursday - you do NOT want to miss it!

“Ah!” screech extremist Rejoiners, “but we were still suffering from Covid when we left the EU!”

Yes, this is perfectly true. Exports from countries all around the world were down in 2020. So let’s go back further and see if there really has been a real terms increase (excluding the effect of inflation) in the UK’s exports.

The appropriate date we chose to go back to was that of the EU Referendum: June 2016. That’s over nine years ago, well before Covid and lockdowns. The second chart which follows shows the real terms increase since Q2 2016. We have shown this as a line chart so the effects of Covid’s lockdowns can clearly be seen.

Real growth in the UK’s total exports since the Referendum
Jun (Q2) 2016 – Sep (Q3) 2025

Latest official data from the ONS

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Remember “falling off a cliff”?

It must be remembered that the British public were threatened that the UK’s exports would fall off the proverbial cliff if they voted to leave the EU. No-one would want to trade with us any more. No coherent explanation was ever given for this extraordinary claim, but that didn’t stop Messrs Cameron, Osborne, and the massed ranks of the British and global Establishment from uttering their threats.

The reality was quite different, however. Despite the huge hit caused by Covid, the UK’s exports have recovered to a significant degree. As with the increase since the UK left the EU’s Single Market and Customs Union, UK exports have risen in real terms at a highly respectable growth rate.

“Aha!” shriek the extremist Rejoiners. “But what about our exports to the EU?”

To this we will reply: “Have patience.” In our next report on the UK’s exports success story, the Facts4EU think-tank will delve a little deeper into the astonishing 19% real terms increase in total exports in under five years. This further research so far has already revealed some extraordinary results which we will bring to readers very shortly.

For now, though, we would say one thing. This report is a good news story at a time when many news items are about Rachel Reeves’ plans to increase taxes. We invite readers (and extremist Rejoiners) to celebrate the fact that our exporters have been doing a magnificent job. The important thing is this success.

Observations

For extremist Rejoiners desperate to do our country down, we have a question.

If your salary or pension goes up by nearly 20% in real terms, does it matter to you why this has happened? Like most people you would of course be interested in the reasons, but when you go shopping the most important thing is that you have more money to spend.

Why take excellent news like this and try to prove that some small part of it is not as good as the rest? If you are an extremist Rejoiner, however, the thing that matters most is not that you have had a 20% rise in income but that the increase must be belittled in some way.

The Facts4EU team prefer simply to celebrate this remarkable success and congratulate the UK’s exporters.

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

[ Sources: Office for National Statistics ] Politicians and journalists can contact us for details, as ever.

Brexit Facts4EU.Org, Tues 18 Nov 2025

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Reader Comments 10

1. Sparky , Tuesday, November 18, 2025, 13:16:

The forcasts were that the leaving the EU would reduce long run productivity by 4%. This now looks like a the reduction in productivity is greater than forcast.
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As this is a repeat of last weeks Facts4EU reports, I’ll repeat my comment over the weekend.
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An interesting report published in Nov by National Bureau of Economic Research based in the USA entitled "The Economic Impact of Brexit"
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In summary it concludes: "We estimate that by the start of 2025, the UK economy was approximately 8% smaller than it would have been without Brexit, based on macro data, and 6% smaller using firm-level micro data. Investment is estimated to have been 12-18% lower, employment 3-4% lower and productivity also 3-4% lower than it would have been if the UK had not voted to the leave the EU.

2. NH , Tuesday, November 18, 2025, 14:06:

11. Sparky
The NBEC report has nothing to do with the USA it was produced by the Bank of England "Decision Maker Panel" and one person from the Bundesbank. As with the OBR report it's produced by Civil Servants and University Staff.
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They did not compare the UK economy with the EU economy. They compared the UK economy with a bundle of economies (USA, Canada, Japan, Switzerland, Norway, EU etc). The EU only represented approx. 30% of this bundle. These economies were effected very differently by the pandemic. USA, Canada and Norway benefitted from increased energy prices. Japan and Switzerland did not experience high inflation. They only analysed GDP / Capita so it also includes domestic Government policies and changes in demographics which are nothing to do with Brexit. Even if you use GDP / Capita the UK and EU-27 performance since Brexit are very similar using official EU data.
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For investment they only used "Fixed Capital Formation Data" which has been declining in the UK since 1975. This is not how UK businesses invest as we are a service based economy. For productivity they ignored the fact that there has been a huge decline in UK public sector productivity since the pandemic (NHS -18.5% in one year etc), and this has nothing to do with Brexit.
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They ignored the effects of the huge EU mutual debt stimulus program, EU debt guarantees, UK Continued payments to the EU, the vast majority of the EU pass through payments etc etc. They also left out the effect of the BOE losses which are have been costing the UK over 0.8% of GDP per year and the huge cost of the BOE failing to control inflation. In short they left out more than they included.

3. KB , Tuesday, November 18, 2025, 14:38:

I still think the UK is not doing enough to move away from the EU sphere of influence.
We are dependent on France for electricity and all we can think of is build yet more interconnectors.
We are still far too dependent on EU food supplies. Imports from the EU have actually increased since Brexit, but we still have limited quotas for Australian imports.
Whereas what we should be doing is getting suppliers from all round the world to compete with each other.

4. Annmarie , Tuesday, November 18, 2025, 16:54:

Well the Starmer student union government will never properly distance us from the EU, 12 years of fishing rights he has given away for absolutely nothing in return, the man is a traitor, and he is trying to take us back in by stealth. The sooner this government is hung, drawn and quartered, the better!

5. Gazzablack , Tuesday, November 18, 2025, 18:18:

1, sparkless
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And I'll repeat
Garbage in, garbage out.
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You cannot measure something that doesn't exist.

6. Sparky , Wednesday, November 19, 2025, 07:09:

2 NH. You've borrowed G's blinkers. Extract from the National Bureau of Economic Research report. "We compare the UK to a set of 33 comparator countries: the EU-27, the US, Canada, Japan, Iceland, Norway and Switzerland. Our data were collected from the OECD, World Bank and national statistical offices. They cover the period from 2006 Q1 to 2025 Q1. We carry out this analysis for GDP per capita, business investment, employment and labor productivity."
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The ONS produced stats on "Fixed Capital Formation Data" just 6 days ago.
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If you prefer have look at "Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales" report published in Sept. In summary "The UK economy is currently struggling due to high inflation, rising costs, weak trade, and the long-term impacts of Brexit, leading to stagnant growth and declining consumer confidence." If you don't agree try opening the door and have look around and you'll see just that.

7. Gazzablack , Wednesday, November 19, 2025, 09:43:

6, sparkless
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You should have gone to Specsavers
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It's a flawed methodology to construct a synthetic index by weighting together the performances of a range of other countries taken to be somehow representative of the UK.
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These include Greece with it's post-banking crisis problems, Ireland with it"s highly distorted macro-economic data, and little Iceland with a population as large as a single London borough.
None of these comparators have a statistically significant relationship with economic growth in the UK.
But they are bundled together anyway.
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In fact the only country that has a significant relationship with UK economic growth is the USA, and it is the USA which generates the observed post 2016 deviation in economic performance.
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Since 2016 the Biden and Trump administrations have generated rapid growth through spending sprees in public expenditure.
This has opened up a growth gap with the UK and other European countries since 2016, but one that has nothing to do with Brexit.

8. NH , Wednesday, November 19, 2025, 10:31:

6. Sparky
You clearly have not read what I have written !
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On a per Capita basis the USA has outperformed the EU and the UK by 3x since Brexit . This is because they limit immigration to high value immigration. The UK per capita data is equal to the EU-27 but poor relative to nations who control their immigration because we have large scale low value immigration and large scale high value emigration. This is due to poor quality Governments not Brexit.
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You solution to control low value immigration is to have legalised uncontrolled immigration for 100's of million of people from low income countries !
Your solution to control the economy is to give free legal access to the UK welfare system for 100's of millions of people from low income countries !

9. KB , Wednesday, November 19, 2025, 12:11:

Gazzablack: I looked the analysis in question last night.
The process seems to be:
Find countries with similar GDP growth as the UK in the years prior to Brexit.
Look at the GDP growth of those comparator countries post-Brexit.
Compare with the GDP growth of the UK since Brexit
The difference between the UK and the comparator countries post-Brexit must be due to Brexit.
A question that occurred to me is, what would Germany GDP look like if they substituted Germany for the UK in this process ? Since German GDP growth post-Brexit is below that of the UK, would it turn out that Brexit had a bigger effect on Germany than the UK itself ?

10. Gazzablack , Wednesday, November 19, 2025, 22:05:

9, KB
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Using the same methodology I am able to say that between the two of them, Bradford Park Avenue and Liverpool have won the Premiere League 20 times.
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"Way to go the Avenue" I say!

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