SIR - In June 2016 Michael Gove and Boris Johnson etc. promised us a “Brexit dividend”. Money would be saved in this country by leaving the EU, they said.
Now the Government has released official figures that show the reverse – Brexit is going to be costly, hugely costly.
Civil servants modelled four options and calculated the net additional Government borrowing required by 2033/34. Staying in the customs union came out as least expensive, adding £17 billion to government borrowing whilst the “car crash” option of moving to World Trade Organisation terms would cost an additional £81 billion.
The dispassionate think tank Global Future carried out a survey of voters, having informed them of these costs of Brexit. The survey included 1,000 Leave voters.
Global Future report that: “Leave voters overwhelmingly said that all options represented a worse deal than they had hoped for when casting their vote." Whilst the highest scoring option received a 28% approval rating from Leave voters the other three options received 83% rejection rates.
The moral here is that the 2016 referendum result should not be respected. People made an uninformed decision.
Now that people (including the 1,000 Leave voters in the sample) have sight of the downside costs they are changing their minds.
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