“What I don’t accept is the premise that Brexit will make us poorer", said Hunt
The Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has been ridiculed for claiming that ‘Brexit will not make us poorer’ as a country, with many citing the government’s own independent body to prove it does.
Hunt told the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg that it was up to the country to make a success of Brexit and embrace the ‘opportunities of a different type of economy’.
He said: “I believe we can make a tremendous success of it but it’s not going to happen automatically’.
Asked then by Kuenssberg: “Do you deny that Brexit has meant that the economy has grown less slowly than it otherwise might have been.”
Hunt replied: “What I don’t accept is the premise that Brexit will make us poorer.
“I don’t deny there are costs to a decision like Brexit, but there are also opportunities, and you have to see it in the round.”
People on social media were quick to point out that the government’s own Office for Budget for Responsibility has said that Brexit has made the UK poorer.
The chairman of the OBR Richard Hughes, last year said that Brexit would reduce the UK’s potential gross domestic product by 4% in the long term.
He also said that the impact of Brexit on the economy would be worse in the long run compared to the Covid pandemic.
Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward
(Picture credit: Youtube screengrab)
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