Effective trade policy is built on one thing above all: a sound grasp of competitive advantage in overseas markets. Understand this, and a country can feel its way towards export-driven prosperity. Ignore it, and trade policy is flying blind – and so is industrial policy. The UK has been free to craft its own trade […]
A giant paradox cripples industrial Britain: we are a nation of inventors, and yet manufacturing is in decline. We nurture brilliant engineers, and yet commercialisation too often goes offshore – including to other advanced economies. This is a disaster for national prosperity. Collectively we spend a fortune on science and research. But if commercial exploitation […]
According to ONS trade data for 2023, the UK has lost about £1.9 billion of annual food exports to the European Union since Brexit. This should shock no one. Food was always going to be the export trade hardest hit by Brexit, since food production is what the EU most closely protects and controls. But […]
First year medical students are taught one great diagnostic precept: ‘Coincidence is not causation‘. That simple mantra saves millions of lives. It could also save British exports. Data for 2021 showed that trade declined by 15-17% and Brexit got the blame. The Office for Budgetary Responsibility (OBR) said its forecasts on Brexit were confirmed by […]
AstraZeneca’s plan to build a $350m pharmaceuticals factory in Ireland rather than the UK was 100% predictable. And it’s not just a tragedy for Britain’s life sciences. As a paper published by the Centre for Brexit Policy in November showed, the long-term failure of UK pharma highlights how UK policy discussion is light years behind our […]
In an op-ed last week, Jacob Rees-Mogg issued a rallying cry to Sun readers to help him scrap irritating Brussels bureaucracy. ‘Through thousands of small changes’, Rees-Mogg wrote, ‘we can enact real economic change — which means The Sun’s readers will feel a real Brexit bonus in their pockets and in their lives every day.’ […]
