UK economy and politics in charts
On 23 June 2016, Britons went to the polls to vote on whether to remain in the European Union.
A shocking result emerged overnight: voters voted to leave the bloc by 52% to 48%. The pound fell. The FTSE 100 in London fell. Then-Prime Minister David Cameron, who had called for a referendum and campaigned for a vote to remain in the EU, resigned.
Since then, Britain has negotiated a deal after Cameron’s successor, Theresa May, failed to accept the proposal three times before resigning. Brexit was finally delivered by Prime Minister Boris Johnson in 2020.
The Brexit campaign has promised to “take back control” of immigration, allocate more money for the country’s healthcare and strike trade deals with the rest of the world.
Ten years later, Brexit still looms over life in Britain. Here’s how the UK’s economic and political scene has progressed graphically since then:
How has Brexit affected UK growth?
The UK economy has largely failed to experience a post-Brexit boom following the deterioration of ties with its largest trading partner.
While shocks such as the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 hit global growth, Stanford professor Nicholas Bloom estimates that Brexit could reduce the UK’s GDP by 6-8% by 2025.
He wrote that the negative impacts “reflect a combination of increased uncertainty, reduced demand, diverted management time and an increase in the misallocation of resources resulting from the protracted Brexit process.”
How has UK immigration changed after Brexit?
The Vote Leave campaign promised to take back control of the UK’s immigration policy, but leaving the bloc had unintended consequences. The UK currently has net migration to EU countries, but immigration from non-EU countries has increased due to shortages in job supply, an increase in international students and emergency visa schemes being extended to countries such as Ukraine.
On the other hand, fewer Europeans are moving to the UK and net migration from the bloc has reversed.
“EU net migration turns negative in 2022 as the post-Brexit immigration system greatly reduces opportunities for EU citizens to move to the UK,” the Migration Observatory wrote in a briefing in May.
“Work visa uptake among EU citizens has been relatively low since Brexit.”
Sterling
One of the clearest indicators of the impact of Brexit is the value of the pound sterling, which fell after the vote and has yet to reach its pre-referendum highs against both the euro and the dollar. The pound generally trades around 10% below its June 2016 value, according to Convera.
Convera found that GBP/EUR has averaged €1.16 since the referendum, down from €1.27 in the previous decade, and sterling has spent 98% of its trade below €1.20 since the Brexit vote.
This instantly made foreign goods and assets more expensive for UK citizens, affecting the cost of living as the country is a major importer of food, energy and materials.
What happened to the FTSE 100 and FTSE 250?
The gap in performance between the large-cap, multinational FTSE 100 and the more domestically focused FTSE 250 also paints a muted picture for London’s capital markets.
“On the face of it, the UK stock market is still bearing the scars of a decision that has put pressure on both business and investor confidence,” Chris Smith, Jupiter’s UK growth equity investment manager, told CNBC. he said.
“The FTSE 100, with its global revenue exposure and favorable sector composition, has significantly outperformed the more domestically focused FTSE 250. Sterling weakness, foreign exchange-driven inflation and the higher cost of capital have all contributed to a more challenging environment for UK-focused businesses,” he added.
Both indexes failed to keep up with the eye-popping gains in U.S. stock markets, which have been in a prolonged bull run fueled by technology and artificial intelligence stocks.
“The UK stock market hasn’t changed much from a decade ago,” said Morningstar portfolio manager Mark Preskett. “The controlling shares of the FTSE from a decade ago remain our most successful companies.”
“If you compare that to the US market, you can see a more dynamic list of companies and an index that has seen real change.”
How has Brexit changed UK-EU trade?
The EU remains the UK’s largest trading partner, importing and exporting over €800 billion.
In 2025, the EU accounted for 41% of UK exports and 50% of UK imports.
A new trade agreement was signed between the two sides on January 1, 2021, preventing either side from imposing tariffs or quotas.
prime ministers
Cameron had been prime minister for six years when he resigned the morning after the Brexit vote. His predecessor, Gordon Brown, had been in office for three years. Before Brown, Tony Blair had been prime minister for ten years.
Since the referendum, no prime minister has remained in office for more than three years; One prime minister lasted only 49 days.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer sought to rebuild the country’s ties with Europe but resigned on Monday after facing a leadership challenge from rival Andy Burnham, paving the way for a seventh prime minister in a decade.
— CNBC’s Bryn Bache also contributed to this report.
