Dear Liberals: Brexit's Not Causing Economic Calamity

Zach Montanaro | September 21, 2016
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So the London Bridge is, in fact, not falling down.

If you remember the lead-up to and aftermath of the Brexit vote, you might remember different pundits and news organizations decrying the ‘Leave’ vote and openly worrying about England’s future. The New York Times was openly trying to play up the idea that the vote was leading to an increase in violence and xenophobia, John Oliver was trying to list off a bunch of reasons why leaving the EU was a horrible idea for Britain, and even Bill Maher was calling for the Constitution to be rewritten because of the Brexit vote.

And now, three months later, we have found that Britain’s economy is… well, kind of where it was before.

That’s according to an assessment by the British Office of National Statistics, a non-political department that reports directly to the UK Parliament. In their summary, which you can see in full here, the ONS stated that, overall, “There has been no sign of a major collapse in confidence and, within the data that is available, some indicators of strength.

In particular, one statistic states, “The volume of spending in shops and online fell back slightly by 0.2% in August but this followed strong growth of 1.9% in July.”

Adding to this is the relatively high employment rate of 74.5 percent for the three months to July that show “a picture of broad strength in the UK economy in the run up to and in the period immediately following the EU referendum.”

The ONS did, however, mention that much of their information “so far generally covers short-term indicators with other important information not yet available,” which is understandable considering the Brexit vote was only three months ago.

Still, it would appear that the reports of the death of Great Britain that many liberals were trying to feed us have been, unsurprisingly, greatly exaggerated. 

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