I replied with the following chart demonstrating that this is a Europe wide issue and a result of the rise in the price of oil and gas imports and asking him why as Economics Editor of the @FT for 14 years he either didn't know this or was he purposely misrepresenting the facts?

Below I show the a chart comparing the UK and EU net trade performance over the past decade. As you can see the trend is exactly the same (although the EU started from a position of surplus) demonstrating that this is a function of oil and gas prices/imports and not Brexit.

Note the UK shift to a trade surplus in 2019/20 due to covid and the return to deficit in 2021 as the global economy re-opened (which some commentators have tried to ascribe to a Brexit effect post the end of the transition period).

There has been much reporting of this nature in recent months intended to create the impression that Brexit is causing a collapse in UK exports and feeding inflation. This is simply not true, so for that reason I decided to make this thread to counter this misinformation.

First on UK exports to the EU. It is claimed they have collapsed since the end of the transition period. This is demonstrably false. Here is a chart using ONS data

This chart also disproves the argument UK export performance has been worse than EU. It compares UK exports with EU exports over the last decade. NB the outperformance of the UK since the 2016 brexit referendum vote. NB the broadly matched performance post 2020 (covid) & TCA.

Here is the same chart over 25 years. you will note that the only period in that time when UK exports outperformed EU exports was the period 2016-2020. After the Brexit vote (largely because of the devaluation of the pound)

But that is not all One of the expected effects of Brexit, was increased capture of UK consumption by UK based businesses (incl reshoring). The data suggests that this is happening as shown below where UK industrial production since 2019 has outpaced Germany & France

In other words, the export data (which does not show any post brexit collapse) is not the full picture because we should expect supply chain reversions as a result of the increased trade barriers from the UK leaving the SM & CU.

And considering the UK went from a trade surplus with the EU before the advent of the SM to a £100b pa goods trade deficit, we would expect any reversion to be on balance in the UK's benefit. Which is exactly what the data appears to be demonstrating

In short, please take with a huge bucket of salt recent claims of the negative effects of Brexit on the UK economy. They are being pushed by those with an anti Brexit agenda and are not reflective of the underlying data.

@DerrickBerthel1 Being outside of the EU has helped us on the food inflation situation as we've been better able to substitute to cheaper sources of supply such as (iirc) tomatoes from Morocco. The propagandists won't be mentioning this though.

@Ellis_Greenwood And this process has barely begun, not least because the FTA's we have signed (eg NZ & Australia) delay the benefits of cheaper imports for years.

@DerrickBerthel1 @Sunpoches Why is Hungary so high?

@_smalla @Sunpoches This is a good article on why

@DerrickBerthel1 @JamesHawkesTees can you provide the evidence of were this data is from

@marg0t_m @JamesHawkesTees Please

@DerrickBerthel1 I take it you don’t go food shopping ….. one example … salad bowls from m and s up 25% in a week when the price of seasonal foods should be lower in season. Food bills are much higher.