Citizen journalists have compiled a dossier that contains over 2,000 examples of the negative impacts of Brexit, and 39 positives.
The referendum in the UK on EU membership back in 2016 resulted in a narrow majority voting for Britain to leave but it is still a cause of discord with repeated calls for people the UK to be given the chance to vote again on membership of the 27-strong bloc.
The issue of Britain’s often thorny relationship with the EU was again under the spotlight this week when UK foreign minister David Lammy attended a meeting in Luxembourg of the EU Foreign Affairs Council to exchange views with EU Foreign Affairs Ministers on shared security challenges facing Europe.
This was taken by some as a sign of the Labour government in the UK wanting to “re-set” relations with the EU.
Lammy is the first Foreign Secretary to attend the EU’s Foreign Affairs Council for two years, and he hailed his visit as a “historic moment.”
The trip was at the invitation of Josep Borrell, a former president of the EU parliament and EU high representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, and followed UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s recent visit to Brussels where he pledged to move beyond Brexit and make the UK’s relationship with the EU work for the British people.
Meanwhile, a UK based citizen journalism publication has compiled what it calls “the David Downside Dossier” which charts numerous examples of how Brexit has impacted negatively on life, both in the UK and in Europe.
David Davis is a former government minister in the UK who enthusiastically championed the idea of Brexit for many years. He was contacted by this site for a comment but,at the time of going to press, did not reply.
The “dossier” was compiled by Anthony Robinson, from Yorkshire Bylines, who said some of the “issues” that first arose after Brexit have now been “ironed out”.
But the dossier, which was updated daily until 26 September 2024, claims there are countless other issues that continue to harm relations between the EU and UK and cause numerous practical difficulties for citizens and industry in particular.
He says, “The reason we first began to systematically log the downsides.
“It was to show that those at the forefront of Brexit – particularly David Davis himself – who threw accusations of scaremongering at anyone who opposed them, had no evidence to support their often wild assertions and little idea what they – or more accurately, we – were embarking on.”
He told this site, “The dossier is a clear record of the damage inflicted by Brexit, but also a monument to the colossal ignorance of the EU and the single market by those who recklessly took Britain over a cliff in 2016.
The dossier adds “a word of caution” saying “it is not, and has never pretended to be, a reference work on Brexit.
“We leave that for the historians of the future. We have simply culled items that have appeared in the news that seemed to us to be downsides.”
The dossier adds, “Brexit has become all too real for many UK companies with unwelcome hurdles to doing business in Europe.”
It says that eight years after the vote to quit, the ripples caused by Brexit continue to be felt.
For example, it says that this month a “new phase of Brexit” will begin when the Border Target Operating Model will apply to goods imported from the EU.
This, it states, will “add further friction, costs and disruption to complex supply chains.”
Similar issues are recorded including in the transport and the haulage sector which has, it is claimed, been badly hit with the dossier stating that, “An exodus of EU lorry drivers from the UK since Brexit has left the British haulage and logistics industry facing an acute staff shortage and a looming crisis for industrial and retail deliveries, the sector has warned.”
UK arms manufacturers, it claims, have been hit by long delays in attempts to export weapons overseas because of Brexit red tape” while the UK “has fallen in a ranking of the world’s best countries for entrepreneurship after scoring poorly for infrastructure, ease of entry for foreign workers and red tape linked to Brexit.”
It cites a report by Durham University which claimed that former UK PM Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal is the “primary factor” in the crisis of small boat crossings in the English Channel.
The author said: “The government used to have a deal on returning migrants, but it ended with Brexit and no alternative was agreed. This made it far more difficult to return any new arrivals, and numbers have skyrocketed after this deal stopped.” The study found there were no recorded small boat crossings until 2018.
Elsewhere, it is reported that farming and veterinary groups have warned that delays to applying checks on EU food imports are “an accident waiting to happen” while Brexit has “led to a decline in crops and fewer home-grown products on the shelves of Britain’s supermarkets.”
The dossier also quotes data said to have found the number of EU students who were placed on 2021/22 academic courses in the UK has plunged 56percent and that “back-to-work” schemes across England previously funded by the EU are being forced to close and lay off staff.
The extensive study also says that the Turing scheme replacement for Britain’s participation in the EU’s Erasmus+ academic exchange scheme, has been “plagued with delays and red tape”.
It says that applications from EU students who want to study in Irish universities have more than trebled since the 2016 Brexit referendum while tuition fees for students from the EU increased “dramatically” following Brexit.
The dossier contains no fewer than 2,000 separate entries, each detailing alleged or perceived problems and issues caused by Brexit.
It cautions, “This is only the first 2,000. Expect the numbers to go on rising.”
Commenting on the dossier, senior MEP David McAllister, Chairman of the European Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, said “The dossier underlines what has been clear all along: Brexit was, is and will always remain a historic mistake that left both the EU and particularly the UK worse off. The Withdrawal Agreement as well as the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) have significantly softened the impact of Brexit, but a lot of open questions remain.”
The German EPP member adds, “For instance, there is still no formalised cooperation between the UK and the EU on foreign, security and defence policy. At a time of growing geopolitical tensions, the European Commission and the new UK government should work closely together to improve this. I welcome the UK Prime Minister Starmer’s to work towards a reset of our relations, but his government will need to provide more details on how they intend to reshape the EU-UK relationship.”
Sir Graham Watson, a former senior UK Liberal Democrat MEP, said. “David Davis is among the many Tories who share responsibility for the ongoing disaster of Brexit. The loss of our rights as EU citizens, the fettering of our freedom to live and work on the continent, the red tape and extra cost for business and now the tax rises in Labour’s first budget can all be traced back to Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal.The government’s own Office for Budgetary Responsibility warned them before the vote of the huge cost of Brexit. The Tories ignored it and Corbyn’s Labour Party failed to oppose it. The British people are left to pick up the tab.”
Also commenting, another former UK MEP Edward McMillan-Scott, one of the longest-serving Vice Presidents of the European Parliament, said, “David Davis was an avid Brexiter all the time I knew him. He is a personable man and is not, as once described by Dominic Cummings ‘thick as mince’, but he made no progress with that experienced politician Michel Barnier when negotiating aspects of Brexit.”
Further reaction comes from Dr Denis MacShane, a former Europe Minister under Tony Blair, who said, “This dossier exposes in pitiless detail the damage cutting links with Europe has done to our country. The liars in government 2016-2024 who promised us Brexit would bring nowt but benefits to Britain have now been driven from office never to return.”
Lord (Richard)Balfe, a former British MEP, also told this site, “This is a pretty long and depressing list of all the problems that leaving the EU has brought us. It was never going to be as simple as was pretended. I remember the £350 million a week for the NHS which never materialised and the shiny new trade deal with the USA which is now forgotten.
“The fact is that you can rewrite history as the Brexiteers have tried to but you cannot rewrite your geography. Our current government is supposedly in need of massive investment funds but they have not responded to my offers to try and open up lines to the EIB. As I still have contacts there together with a former EIB President I wrote to the Chancellor of the exchequer around a month ago offering to help with contacts. No reply has yet been received.
“Only the Liberal Democrats, not my party, have a positive attitude to the EU. If the two major parties are not careful they will find that all informed opinion has deserted them and they can find solace with each other on the beach at Clacton.”
But a different view is given by Pieter Cleppe, Editor-in-Chief of BrusselsReport.eu, an opinion website covering EU affairs, who said, “Brexit comes with costs and benefits.
“The costs are obvious and mostly relate to extra friction in trade between the UK and the EU.The benefits are less obvious, but they are material: Britain can now independently close trade deals. It hasn’t had much success here, apart from the great achievement to be able to access the CPTPP transpacific trade arrangement. Britain has not exploited the opportunity to have a bonfire of EU regulations, so it has missed out on this Brexit benefit, but it is unlikely to copy all of the new, innovation-hostile regulations the EU continues to churn out, both in the digital and energy sphere.
“When it comes to energy policy, the UK remains firmly on the same line of the EU, supporting unreliable renewables. When this will appear to have failed, it will be easier for the UK to implement changes than it would have been as a member of the EU.
“In that sense, the benefits of Brexit will only be visible after a long time. In an ideal world, the UK would have stayed in the EU, but then a reformed EU, focused on scrapping trade barriers and not micromanaging society.”
