What is the long-term gain though? And how can we grow our national economy and wealth long-term?
We don’t have any industries that produce things (e.g. cars, appliances, clothes) in England/Wales/Scotland anymore, so we can’t generate any wealth from that.
We don’t have any nationalised industries (e.g. trains, buses, utilities) either, unlike somewhere like Norway for example, so we can’t make any money from that.
Also, because of Brexit, we now pay a lot of money on trading with the EU (when we previously either paid no, or very low, trading costs).
The only thing we have that could generate wealth is our financial services industry, mainly in and around London. Whilst that is a huge asset for us, it’s very risky to have that as our main generator of wealth, particularly as it’s competing with other EU countries (e.g. France and Germany) for power and status.
The lack of industries in the UK is not a direct result of Brexit, of course - it dates back to much earlier, the 70s and 80s, when industrial production here started to reduce and then disappear completely. However, the status of our finance sector as a direct competitor with France and Germany is a result of Brexit.
How can we grow wealth as a nation long-term if we’re only relying on one asset (our finance sector) and if that sector is constantly competing for business with EU countries, rather than working with them and trading with them?