Project Fear predictions about UK might be ‘gross exaggeration’

The Bank of England has reported that the UK economy is expected to be in recession in 2023, due to the increase in prices. However, economist Roger Bootle has argued that the current economic turmoil may not be due to Brexit. Writing in the Telegraph on Sunday evening, Mr Bootle argued that the UK is not doing any worse compared to other countries and said: ‘On a constant price basis, since 2016, the UK economy has grown slightly faster than Germany, at about the same rate as Spain and much faster than Italy.’Mr Bootle admitted there have been certain issues due to Brexit due to ‘elusive’ trade deals and the Government has ‘undertaken hardly any of the deregulation that was supposed to be made possible by Brexit.’However, the economist said: ‘This does not cause me to recant my earlier support of Brexit. I always recognised that there could be an immediate economic price to pay for the recovery of sovereignty.’He argued that the pandemic and the Russian war in Ukraine have meant ‘all countries have suffered similar problems’ to Britain in recent times. Mr Bootle looked at Britain’s inflation rate and said: ‘At 10.1 percent, our inflation rate compares adversely with America’s 8.2 percent …Germany, that supposed paragon of anti-inflationary virtue, the latest figure is 11.6 percent.’ Economist Roger Bootle claims Brexit economic consequences may be a ‘gross exaggeration’ (Image: Getty Images)The Telegraph columnist examined the shrinkage of Britain’s workforce and said while it is ‘about a million people below what could have been expected on the basis of past trends’ he believed this was a current ‘global feature’. He said: ‘Our shrinkage is much larger than what has happened in Germany while in France there has been no shrinkage at all. ‘But our degree of labour force shrinkage is only slightly greater than America’s, about the same as Japan’s and well below Italy’s.Mr Bootle believes the current workforce issues have been due to the effect of the ‘pandemic and associated lockdowns’ and said each country has had a different pandemic experience due to ‘different health, social security and pension systems’.READ MORE: Brexiteer accuses Rishi Sunak of helping ‘surrender Northern Ireland’ The Bank of England has reported that the UK economy is expected to be in recession in 2023 (Image: Getty Images)This summer, Tom Waters, an economist at the IFS, said that long Covid has left an ‘ongoing, perpetual effect’ on employment rates.He said the businesses would ‘have to respond by hiring more staff or simply producing less as there are not many workers on hand, so that could feed through a bit into inflation.’Mr Bootle also looked into Britain’s interest rate, which made headlines last week when the Bank of England rose the interest rate to the highest in 30 years 0.75 percent points to 3pc.He said: ‘Presumably that wasn’t caused by Brexit? Indeed, US rates are already higher than ours and their peak seems set to be higher than ours as well.’DON’T MISS: UK-US trade deal ‘not a priority’, experts say [REVEAL]Remoaners mocked for blaming Brexit for labour shortages [REPORT]Sky News host exposes key flaw in immigration policy since Brexit [INSIGHT] Mr Bootle said that the pandemic and Russian Ukraine war mean all countries face similar issues (Image: Getty Images)While looking into Europe’s interest rate, he said: ‘They are currently at only 1.5pc and they will probably peak at about 3pc, well below our peak rates.’The economist also argued that at 98pc, Britain’s debt to GDP ratio is the second lowest out of the G7 countries, and said: ‘Italy’s debt ratio is currently standing at about 150pc, and France’s is now 113pc.’Mr Bootle says although the nest year for Britain will be ‘grim’ he believes there will be ‘similar contractions elsewhere.He added: ‘Germany may fare a good deal worse. And there is scope for a bounceback here in 2024.’