Mark Sumner

Alastair Campbell, "I will say to Zia Yusuf and his friend Nigel Farage" "Brexit has taken 6-8% out of economy" "If we had not left, the Chancellor today would have had £90 billion more to spend" "He could have doubled the defence budget" Fiona Bruce, "That is a projection Alastair, no one can be sure about that" Alastair Campbell, "And added 50% to the health budget as well" "The people who gave us Brexit now want to give you another set of false promises" "Do not fall for them because they are a bunch of conmen. They're being found out. And its one reason why Nigel Farage will never be Prime Minister of this country" My view: Fiona Bruce was quick to dismiss Campbell’s figures as “a projection”. But that shouldn’t be a way to shut down the argument. Campbell was making a point about what Brexit has cost the country: on his figures, a 6–8% hit to the economy means around £90 billion less for the Chancellor to spend—enough, he said, to double the defence budget or increase health spending by 50%. And remember what Nigel Farage was saying in 2016: that even without a trade deal, Britain would be better off than it was then. The evidence points the other way. The OBR estimates that Brexit will leave UK productivity around 4% lower than it would have been inside the EU; other studies put the economic hit higher. That means we’re poorer than we would have been had we stayed. So yes, these are estimates—but the claims made by Brexit’s champions were projections too. Bruce’s caveat shouldn’t obscure the central question Campbell raised: how much has Brexit cost us, and what could that money have done for the country?