UK trade and investment – exports

In the last year Brexit Britain’s exports soared by 24%

Rejoiners who want to put our country down may wail, but the facts are the facts.

CIBUK Article : https://cibuk.org/in-the-last-year-brexit-britains-exports-soared-by-24-percent/

CIBUK Twitter : https://twitter.com/CibukOrg/status/1642073673216532483

CIBUK Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/CIBUKOrg/posts/165405233078578

Facts4EU Article:: https://facts4eu.org/news/2023_apr_big_brexit_win_3

Facts4EU Twitter: https://twitter.com/Facts4euOrg/status/1642050714326257665?s=20

Facts4EU Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Facts4EU/posts/pfbid0241CwdiioGoteXX6Z7tJBjJgCUZGk965zKymJ5YVx3AFuYLbpiXzX82oikGmyi3gTl

Great news that last year UK trade surged and inward investment reached a new record. The BBC and the Remain campaigners push out errant forecasts and strange models to suggest post Brexit the UK will do badly, ignoring the reality of trade and overseas investment rising. Why do they always want to run the UK down? Why do they play down the significance of so much investment coming from outside the EU despite their dogma that our trade and prosperity depend on the EU? The USA is by far and away our biggest export market and we are doing well there. Services are particularly strong. Now we are out of the EU we are negotiating trade deals like the TPP one which include services, something the EU did not include in most of their deals.

32 Comments

  1. hans christian iversen
    April 3, 2023

    Sir JR,

    I did services in the Eu across all countries for 20 years without any barriers at all, so I do not know what you ar talking about in terms of no services within the EU?

    Reply In EU Trade Agreements with ROW

  2. Paul
    April 3, 2023

    An increase on a low base due to Covid. 2022 is roughly the same as 2014. No wonder the majority of the population now believe Brexit was the wrong decision, not to mention Dover queues and massively increased legal and illegal immigration.

    1. a-tracy
      April 3, 2023

      Paul, who pays the passport checkers at Dover the UK or the EU? On known and anticipated peak days, when annually children go on Easter coach trips via Dover, why do you think that half the gantries were closed without staff? Who makes the decision at Dover on the staff numbers? Logistically it seems like poor planning to me. They must have trained staff perhaps those that have retired who could work a few days at peak times? Or not? I wonder if they allow border staff to go on holidays themselves or whether they ban their holidays at this time and ask them to take holidays during quieter periods.

  3. Lynn Atkinson
    April 3, 2023

    The attack Britain because we are the keystone of the freedom arch. Break Britain and he dominions fall – her greatest ex-colony the USA is isolated and the ‘English system’ of capitalism and democracy is gone.
    They have managed to pervert big. Capitalism (where the HUGE majority of people own capital and assets) and Democracy (where the largest number of people get their way via the ballot box rather than by ‘traditional means’).
    We must hang onto our traditional values – of which the neo-cons know nothing. And to our Constitution. They guarantee that we can recover from anything!

  4. jerry
    April 3, 2023

    But are the facts actually the facts, given the so called “Rotterdam affect”, our notional export figures will have surged now they are counted as UK exports and not lumped in with the combined EU export figures, or treated as part of the internal market, thus whilst as a Headline our exports might well appear to have “soared” we are doing no more actual business. Then of course the comparison is being made between a year badly affected because of Covid restrictions and one when many of the restrictions had been lifted, why wasn’t the comparison made between say 2019 and 2022, rather than 2021 & 2022?

    If the UK is to make a success of Brexit we need clarity, not even more smoke and mirrors that we had before!

    1. a-tracy
      April 3, 2023

      Were UK exports to RoW double counted?

      Summary. The ‘Rotterdam-Antwerp effect’ describes distortions in official trade statistics due to misreporting of commodities passing through major world ports en route to their final destination. For example, UK exports for non-EU countries through the Netherlands might be misreported as exports to the Netherlands.
      The ‘Rotterdam-Antwerp Effect’ in the Context of UK Trade https://www.escoe.ac.uk/projects/the-rotterdam-antwerp-effect-in-the-context-of-uk-trade-statistics/

      Jan 2019 — In 2013 the UK Office of National Statistics (ONS) estimated that accounting for the Rotterdam effect could reduce exports to the EU by 4.3%. Cebr

  5. Mickey Taking
    April 3, 2023

    ..and I hope Britain’s imports from EU has fallen?

  6. agricola
    April 3, 2023

    You ask why the BBC put out a lot of negative, black, and remain propaganda. Not complicated, they are the voice of Remain. Guardian/BBC/Remain is the way they are. The big question is, should we continue to be taxed to support them. The Guardian we pay for if we want it, we believe in remain if we choose to, but the BBC is pay for it, like it or not. At the very least the news and current affaires division of the BBC should be privatised. They can then sink or swim on the propaganda they broadcast. Will your consocialist party do it, not a snowballs chance in hell. They believe in the message.

    1. jerry
      April 3, 2023

      @agricola; Whilst TalkTV and GBNews put out a lot of pro Brexit propaganda, being the voices of Leave…

      At least we can choose if to fund the BBC or not, unlike with the commercial news channels, funded as they are via the supermarket checkouts, or via cross media ownership etc. No one is being forced to watch TV, you can listen to radio for free, there is a lot of news and entertainment available on the internet without the legal need to have a TVL.

  7. Peter Gardner
    April 3, 2023

    Meanwhile, the EU27 trade deficit plunged to -€432bn in 2022. Triumph of the Common Man over the political elites in the UK.

  8. Ian B
    April 3, 2023

    Everyone’s favourite senior Tory Tobias Ellwood with support from Conservative Robert Buckland and the Labour leader Keir Starmer have today hit the media claiming that the hold-ups at Dover are down to Brexit. Its nothing to do with the French having a series of strikes. Their claims are also at odds with why it is just travel connections to the EU State of France and not with other EU States.

    1. Diane
      April 3, 2023

      Nothing to do with the bl…. awful weather either presumably. Thursday – no dinghies crossed. Friday – none. Saturday – none. Sunday – none. Some kind of facts & figures analysis would be helpful from our leaders. Were any of the know-alls monitoring events & movements down in Dover from the start of this peak weekend, the likes of which many of us have no doubt experienced long before Brexit. New procedures and the inefficiencies therein would have had some impact but it’s so much easier to just keep up the negative rhetoric.

    2. jerry
      April 3, 2023

      @Iain B; But if the UK was still in the EU such strikes would have little, or nor effect!
      You might not like it but ‘Remainers’ are correct, such delays, unless the ships stop sailing, or the Tunnel shuts, is the result of Brexit, just as such delays in the past were the fault of the UK not joining the Schengen area.

      You wanted passport checks, the French obliged, or did you only expect them one-way?…

      1. a-tracy
        April 3, 2023

        Do you know who does the passport checks (French/EU employees or UK port/government employees) and who pays their wages Jerry (is it the port authority, uk government, a % of the ticket sale value? I wonder how many workers they employ per day at peak times, how many hours per day do they work on average each person? Compared to other times of the year? I wonder how many were on duty Thursday, Friday and Saturday this busy anticipated travel period compared to the number of people travelling through? How many people are normally processed per hour, how many during this past weekend? If I were a journalist reporting on this every year these are the questions I’d want answering.

        1. jerry
          April 4, 2023

          @a-tracy; Your comment is irrelevant to the point made by Iain B and my reply, it matters not one jot who pays for the passports to be checked now, before Brexit there were few if any passport checks between the UK and France, had the UK been in the Schengen area there would have been none!

          I see some media outlets (such as Times Radio) are reporting one of the problems was the higher number of coaches that had been booked via Dover, in preference to the Tunnel, due to EuroTunnel “hiking the costs for coaches” using the shuttle during the Easter Holiday period.

          1. a-tracy
            April 4, 2023

            I’m afraid I have to disagree, Jerry.
            Ian pondered if the delays were due to striking French workers, so if French workers man the port, are any of them striking?
            It does matter who pays the passport checkers; their productivity needs to be questioned as does the logistical management of the port, if they don’t hire sufficient passport checkers, knowing the people going through their port are going up on those peak holiday period days by a massive factor. It hasn’t just happened this year I’ve been in transport 40 years and it happens every peak holiday weekend.

          2. jerry
            April 4, 2023

            @a-tracy; Run that past me again … so NOT having to bother with passport checks would cause even worse delays; that is what you are implying! Productivity is an irrelevance, checks cause delays, even with the best productivity, they would exist were there self scan passport checking machines – think toll booths.

            You ask about (French) strikes. Given the issue at the port only seemed to be with coaches, due to the number of individual bio-metric passport checks needed for each coach, compared to cars and lorries, it suggest the problem wasn’t due to strike action.

          3. a-tracy
            April 5, 2023

            If the port of Dover normally has 200+ coaches per day (transportfriend) how many did it process on Friday 31st March, and Saturday 1st April? If they usually have 20 passport processors on duty (they have had eight years to prepare for extra passport checks) to process those 200 coaches how many did they have on-duty in comparison? Coaches would book in advance, and the Ferry companies report to the port how many vehicles they have pre-booked. Is it the British authority that checks the passports or the French staff and did they have sufficient on those two days for the expected coaches and other car traffic pre-booked on those crossings? I don’t know where to get that information but if I was a journalist reporting on this I would want to know the facts and how the logistics are organised for peak days.

          4. jerry
            April 5, 2023

            @a-tracy; Tell me, before Brexit how many “EU Passport” checks were carried out when we used those “Green Lanes” traveling between EU27 countries – the likely answer was very few, if not zero, now tell me Brexit has not caused increased passport checks at Dover.

            One of the arguments for Brexit was to tighten-up immigration, by the use of increased passport checks once outside of EU law, now it appears Brexiteers only wanted asymmetric inbound checks, and any problems are all the fault of the French, how dare they implemented symmetrical checks and cause the holidaying Brits so much trouble! 🙄

            You ask about who checks passports, it is reported that the French do, using Port of Dover facilities (meaning the number of French officers is governed by what the UK provide), it is also reported that the Port of Dover asked for post Brexit funding from HMG to increase those facilities – funding was turned down. And no the ports have not had “eight years to prepare”, unless they were to risk wasting millions, they had since 24 July 2019, when Boris said the UK would leave with or without a deal on 31 October 2019. Until Mrs May resigned were not Brexiteers worried their hard won Brexit would morph into BRINO, indeed that worry did not end until Johnson’s landslide election win; had the UK joined either the EFTA or EEA passport checks (extra) would likely not be needed.

            Whatever…

          5. a-tracy
            April 6, 2023

            Jerry passport checks were done on every passenger leaving at Dover? Everyone at to present their passport, you couldn’t get on. I flew once from Manchester to Glasgow and was shocked to be asked for my passport and not allowed to travel internally without it or a photo driving licence. I believe they now need a stamp too, but passports were required as we weren’t in Shengen.

            NO! I am just expect the right number of checkers checking passports for the sudden hike in numbers, the passport exits work other than on peak days, and I want to know whether it is the British port authority and their staff at fault or whether French passport checkers put on more staff on the peak days or not? Who pays their wages the UK government, the port authority, a % of the ticket sales? Four years is a massive amount of time logistically to ensure this doesn’t happen, and they could also put on more technology to do the checks as we have at airports now.

            You seem to have a lot of sources. Could you give me the link to where you discovered this please, I’d like to read more “it is reported that the French do, using Port of Dover facilities (meaning the number of French officers is governed by what the UK provide), it is also reported that the Port of Dover asked for post-Brexit funding from HMG to increase those facilities – funding was turned down. “

  9. Keith Jones
    April 3, 2023

    The OBR said the UK economy had taken a 4% hit since leaving the EU. Did not mention GBR/Euro had taken a 20% hit. Only 4% down on VALUE would actually be quite good. However the true measure is VOLUME and that was not mentioned. Is the BREXIT good news you report by volume?
    Thing is the OBR, The Treasury, the Bank of England and the FT all work quite closely together on a different, not pro Brexit agenda and are always swopping staff. The world might have moved on but they haven’t. The question arises how do they get away with it?

  10. turboterrier
    April 3, 2023

    Great News.
    Now leave the ECHR and make us all ecstatic.

  11. Blazes
    April 3, 2023

    “In the last year brexit Britain’s exports soared by 24%”? but anyone can quote figures

    So what are we talking about here ‘tonnage’ or cubic capacity – net monetery gain? gross or what?

    And why only since last year following a time when we were coming off such a low covid base?

    But you know what they say about statistics – especially statistics just trotted out

    Instead look at the real world and see the hold ups in dover and then consider the great deal we now have with Peru and Malaysia that Kemi has been talking about – she puts it out there like a true champ God bless her – when we havn’t even got suitable British merchant ships anymore – not one- and now at a time of climate change the whole world is trying to discourage long distance travel we want to go the other way. On top of that we still havn’t got that sweetheart deal with the US yet and the way the DUP is going we are unlikely to get it either not with this US administration or the next so long as Mccarthy is speaker. Lastly “Talking down Britain”? There is no need for anyone to talk it down, we only need to look at the food banks and the interest rates energy costs and food prices etc. As far as I’m concerned the amount of food banks has to be a better measure of where we’re really at – it has to be the barometer of how we’re doing and not 24%

    1. a-tracy
      April 3, 2023

      Blazes – Do you think the new deal on gov.uk 4 days ago — The UK will join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), a vast free trade area of 11 countries – is going to make the UK worse off than it was in 2022?

      1. Blazes
        April 4, 2023

        Worse off because it is a pretence that things are normal, going well and will be better. The concentric centre of that body is in mid-pacific somewhere. We can trade yes but we don’t need to join a CPTPP to trade the amount of trade we’ll be doing at that distance can be done by WTO Rules without getting ourselves involved with another trading blocs bunch of rules – and what if we don’t like CPTPP rules for some reason in the future are we going to have to go through the same drama again as the past six years. At this stage we should take some time out and start to trade as a free nation unbeholding to any groups trade pact. We need to build relationships to start networking for that to happen like any business we need agents on the ground and time to reorganise – we need to invest in our own merchant shipping again – we may have to dredge some of our ports turn them around from being the yacht marinas they have become we need to get serious about what we want to do – because right now we are leaning back to the EU orbit.

        1. a-tracy
          April 5, 2023

          The CPTPP agreement currently includes 11 countries (Canada, Mexico, Peru, Chile, New Zealand, Australia, Brunei, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam and Japan) in the Indo-Pacific region.

          In 2022 the UK exported (trading economics) :
          Singapore, $7.88B
          Canada, $7.65B
          Japan $7.22B
          Australia, $5.45B
          Malaysia, $2.14B
          Mexico, $1.64B
          New Zealand, $1.08B
          Vietnam $881.03M
          Chile, $568.61M
          Peru, $309.76M
          Brunei, $58.44M

          It will be interesting to compare with this year’s figures.

          1. a-tracy
            April 5, 2023

            2022 UK exports -v- (imports) [source trading economics] in comparison with our exports
            Singapore, $7.88B ($2.50B)
            Canada, $7.65B ($17.05B)
            Japan $7.22B ($13.25B)
            Australia, $5.45B ($2.85B)
            Malaysia, $2.14B ($4.71B)
            Mexico, $1.64B ($5.49B)
            New Zealand, $1.08B (975.72M)
            Vietnam $881.03M ($9.15B)
            Chile, $568.61M ($953.68M)
            Peru, $309.76M ($3.75B)
            Brunei, $58.44M ($24.26M)

            Perhaps it’s time to get some salespeople into Canada, Japan, Vietnam, Peru, and Mexico to fill those vessels up, travelling back nearly empty from us after we already order so much more from them.

  12. Bloke
    April 3, 2023

    Many Remainers and Brexit complainers are anti-democratic. They opposed the majority decision of voters and laws enacted by Parliament while trying all they could to force matters into reverse. They failed and rendered their own opinions worthless. Too many of them continue attempting to talk UK successes down confirming their wish for the UK to accompany them in their own failure.

  13. Peter Parsons
    April 3, 2023

    Classic cherry picking. I saw a post on another site where someone kept going on and on about how much UK exports to the EU had increased in 2021 compared to 2020 and even cited a government report to back up the claim. What that individual failed to point out/chose to ignore was that the same report showed that the 2021 figures were well below 2017, 2018 and 2019.

    You can prove anything you like by sufficiently selective. It’s like judging how rich you are by only looking at how your bank balance changes on pay day and ignoring the rest of the month.

    1. a-tracy
      April 3, 2023

      Peter, Jerry above implied that EU export stats were previously distorted by the Rotterdam effect ie. UK exports counted as EU exports. Does that mean that the UK exports were double counted as exports into the EU in the first place?

      1. jerry
        April 4, 2023

        @a-tracy; But were non ROTW “exports to the EU” actually counted as UK exports before Brexit?

        Had, for example, one of the EU27 car companies sent components from their UK production facility to one of their EU27 production facility would that have been recorded as a UK export or just a transshipment within the EU internal market, in the same way as a shipment between same company sites in Oxford and Manchester would be.

        1. a-tracy
          April 4, 2023

          What about all the other items previously shipped through Rotterdam?

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