Is Brexit still the word that dare not speak its name in the UK Elections in 2024?

In a new #Podcast series Catherine Barnard, Professor of EU Law at the University of Cambridge assesses the impact of the UK’s decision to Brexit the European Union.

It seems that, four years on, neither the doomsters nor the supporters of Brexit can be said to have been proven right in their different forecasts for the UK economy. While the volume of exports may be more or less the same, but with bigger firms winning out at the expense of smaller ones, the service sector remains “pretty buoyant” she says but that Brexit itself was “always going to be a mess”. 

Following Brexit, the economy has also taken a hit from Covid, the War in Ukraine and Energy prices rising, but expert analysis seems to suggest Brexit itself has cost the UK up to 5 per cent of GDP. 

Prof Barnard explained: “It is not catastrophe as some predicted, but it is a slow negative burn and the loss to the UK economy is significant. Meanwhile we are largely rule takers and will continue to have to be.”


In what is being termed the Year of Elections, countries across the globe, including the EU, UK and the USA, are going to the polls. Some have taken to forecasting how international relations will be impacted and whether any new incoming Labour government could think about working more closely with the EU should it win. But elections in the EU in June 2024 might well see it move more to the political right. 

Professor Barnard thinks that having ruled out going back into the Single Market or the Customs Union, the Labour leader Keir Starmer, would struggle to reset relations even if the EU elections in June lead to a newly formed Commission, with new members, whose memories might not be as scared by Brexit as previous incumbents. But if Trump wins in the USA and shows more hostility towards the EU, then the EU would need the UK to move closer to it, particularly on defence and security issues and the war in Ukraine.

She ends this podcast, the first in a new mini series by saying: “It’s really important we keep talking about our relationship with the EU. Of course we recognise that views are very firmly divided about the pros and cons but the issue is we are a medium sized State which in the past has punched above its weight but a lot of that has been removed because we are no longer part of a very big trading bloc, namely the EU. Our weight and influence have been diminished. We are a medium sized economic power now. We are in a world which is precarious, and it is only the big boys that matter, the US, China and the EU. If our relationship with the US is tested again should Trump win, we do need some sort of umbrella and the EU is the place to go. We are part of the European continent, and we need to work out what our relationship with the EU should be.”

@2903cb #Brext Podcast returns March 2024

Catherine Barnard