‘We literally shot ourselves in the foot with Brexit’, tax expert tells LBC – LBC

9 June 2022, 14:53

The UK is lagging behind European counterparts in terms of growth because of Brexit, the Director of Tax Research UK tells Nick Ferrari.

The UK is second only to Russia in an OECD growth forecast for 2023. The report predicts that Britain will have a 0% growth rate for next year.

"The OECD is being rather optimistic", Professor Richard Murphy told Nick Ferrari, adding that the predictions for 2022 are already way off.

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"There's no sign we're going to get 3.6% this year" he said, fearing that a 0% growth rate may come in 2022 and 2023 "might be worse rather than better than that".

Professor Murphy referenced the "peculiar problems the UK has" as factors in the lack of growth. When quizzed by Nick, he noted that Brexit is the primary issue.

"This week we've seen data that's shown only two regions of the UK have grown since 2019 they are London unsurprisingly, perhaps, and Northern Ireland."

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He went on: "There's only one explanation for Northern Ireland growing when everyone else isn't which is of course that it's still in the single market."

"We have literally shot ourselves in the foot with Brexit" the head of Tax Research UK declared. "Like it or not politically, this is an economic fact."

Nick wondered how the UK is comparing to our European neighbours. Professor Murphy said that most of the EU is averaging between two and three percent growth.

"We are way behind the pack."

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'We literally shot ourselves in the foot with Brexit', tax expert tells LBC - LBC