According to a study published over the weekend, Britain's decision to leave the European Union has cost the government £500 million in a week. The economic impact of the Brexit vote has been the subject of intense debate for quite some time now. The Centre for European Reform (CER), a research group that focuses on the European Union, said the British economy is about 2.5 per cent smaller than it would have been if the public have voted to remain in the bloc in June 2016. The findings were based on the impact on the economy until the end of June 2018.
The CER, which describes itself as “pro-European but not uncritical”, said it created a model of how Britain's economy could have performed had the campaign to remain in the EU won the referendum in 2016. The group said its analysis was based on 22 advanced economies whose characteristics closely matched Britain and that did not vote to leave the EU. They then compared it with Britain's actual economic performance since the vote. British economic growth in the first half of this year was the weakest for a six-month period since the second half of 2011 and companies were cutting investment, suggesting companies were taking a cautious approach before Brexit.
