Trade Britain is doubling down, as other economies rebalance their trade. Why the UK’s trade profile has lurched in the opposite direction to almost everyone else. 23 June 2026 by Stephen Hunsaker …on BlueSky to stay up to date with his analysis. Read ‘Leaving EU behind’ to learn more about how Britain lost its trading edge and whether Brexit is to blame…. READ MORE
Trade Leaving EU behind How Britain lost its trading edge and whether Brexit is to blame 22 June 2026 by Sophie Hale and Stephen Hunsaker and Simon Pittaway This briefing note unpacks the UK’s export performance in the decade since the Brexit vote. In the five years since 2019, the period in which Britain formally left the EU,… READ MORE
Industrial strategy revamp needed after UK loses £74 billion worth of goods exports since Brexit 22 June 2026 …did in the years before Brexit. Services now account for 59 per cent of all exports – up 11 percentage points since 2019. However, this is not due to a… READ MORE
Burnham turns up and Brexit turns ten Top of the charts 19 June 2026 …political manoeuvring. Meanwhile, some of us will be staying up late tonight to see whether Scotland can secure a historic move beyond the group stages. Next week also marks Brexit’s… READ MORE
Growth· Trade Leaving EU behind How Britain lost its trading edge and how to get it back Monday 22 June 2026 …down to Brexit compared to other global shifts? How has the UK fared compared to its G7 peers? What does the past decade of economic change mean for the future… READ MORE
A Government reset focused on living standards should ruthlessly prioritise growth, work, and young people’s prospects 14 May 2026 …(£24 billion) to withstand this shock, comparable to that faced immediately after the Brexit referendum. But the harsh reality facing an unpopular government is there is no loose change to… READ MORE
Trade How to win a trade war Book launch event with Soumaya Keynes and Chad Bown Tuesday 2 June 2026 …can lead to hot wars, and what the West can learn from China. As post-Brexit Britain continues to search for its place in the world, and the world waits for… READ MORE
Growth· Investment· Technology· Cities and regions Growth Mais-day Resolution Foundation response to the Chancellor’s 2026 Mais Lecture 18 March 2026 by Sophie Hale …countries to different degrees. But Brexit has been a particular headwind for the UK economy and has contributed to the UK falling further behind its international peers. Failing to address… READ MORE
Growth· Investment Mountain climbing Making progress on the UK’s growth policy challenge 19 January 2026 by Elliott Christensen and Nye Cominetti and Sophie Hale and Greg Thwaites …stronger job creation. At the same time, Brexit-related trade frictions, weak business investment and persistent policy uncertainty continue to weigh on the economy’s capacity to deliver sustained income growth. The… READ MORE
Government must ramp up not run-down its own growth strategy and be far bolder on trade and planning reform 19 January 2026 …EU alignment, by replicating the Northern Ireland customs arrangements across the UK, could reverse around one-quarter of the economic damage of Brexit, twice the India, US and EU-UK reset deals… READ MORE
To everything, turn, turn, turn 16 January 2026 …any other apart from one – the Brexit one. Elevated uncertainty is not the main reason why the UK’s growth record continues to disappoint – read the report on Monday… READ MORE
New Year Outlook 2026 5 January 2026 …grown as slowly as this only in years of big external or self-inflicted shocks: the pandemic in 2020, the energy crisis in 2022-23 and the Brexit referendum in 2016. And… READ MORE
Firms· Incomes· Public finances New Year Outlook 2026 Early and encouraging signs of a mild zombie apocalypse 5 January 2026 by Ruth Curtice and Greg Thwaites …recent times, incomes have grown as slowly as this only in years of big external or self-inflicted shocks: the pandemic in 2020, the energy crisis in 2022-23 and the Brexit… READ MORE
Work· Labour Market Outlook Labour Market Outlook Q4 2025 15 December 2025 by Nye Cominetti and Hannah Slaughter …the Brexit vote and disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic – so that, adjusted for CPI inflation, real wages did not get back to their 2008 level until 2024 (strictly speaking… READ MORE
To grip the problems in the public finances we need to be honest about why they’re in the state they are 19 November 2025 by David Willetts …Brexit has continued to grow. The latest estimates are that Brexit reduced GDP by 6 to 8 per cent by 2025, with business investment down 12 to 18 per cent…. READ MORE
Bad weather for kite flying Top of the charts 14 November 2025 …as intended – a break from this week’s Political Traitors episode. Instead, we bring you the worries of the young, Brexit gloom and lack of progress in reducing regional inequality… READ MORE
Public finances· Growth Trend setters What is the OBR’s forecast for trend productivity growth, and why it matters so much for the Budget 14 October 2025 by Greg Thwaites and Elliott Christensen …final year productivity growth estimate by 0.1 percentage points, due to continued weak productivity growth and the economic effects of Brexit.[5] Figure 3: Outside the pandemic, the OBR last made… READ MORE
Friday night’s alright for fighting Top of the charts 26 September 2025 …Brexit – and that we’ve examined as part of our Intergenerational Centre. As Labour head to Liverpool this weekend, Chart of the Week examines the dramatic evolution of its vote… READ MORE
The Resolution Foundation at 20 19 September 2025 …the UK’s economy – Britain’s productivity woes are far bigger and deeper rooted than Brexit. The biggest reason has been a decades-long failure to invest, by both the state and… READ MORE
Macroeconomic policy The Macroeconomic Policy Outlook: Q3 2025 12 September 2025 by James Smith …Brexit – gilt yields have become more sensitive to changes in investor sentiment as proxied by changes in Treasury yields (the dots in Figure 6 show higher frequency co-movement around… READ MORE
Work Tracking Pay Lessons from the ‘video’ revolution 30 April 2025 by Mike Brewer and Tom Clark and Nye Cominetti and Stephen P. Jenkins …as the original arrival of Donald Trump in 2016 and the Brexit vote in the UK, established worries about a so-called ‘precariat’ widened to encompass purportedly rising insecurity extending into… READ MORE
Britain’s manufacturing weakness may be a source of strength in avoiding Trump’s tariff war 25 April 2025 …in recent years, accelerated by Brexit. But this manufacturing weakness may be a source of strength if Britain’s goods trade balance with the US keeps us out of President Trump’s… READ MORE
Macroeconomic policy The Macroeconomic Policy Outlook Q1 2025 30 January 2025 by Simon Pittaway and James Smith …sensitivity has increased in recent months to its highest level since the Brexit referendum. This is consistent with the idea that continued weak macroeconomic performance and high debt have increased… READ MORE
Eurocrat poker faces and pay puzzles Top of the charts 24 January 2025 …if you want to learn more. Something for the Weekend? | Happy birthday Brexit! Next Friday marks five years since the UK left the EU – clink your flutes/drown your… READ MORE
Why you should all care about inequality Top of the Charts 17 January 2025 …the financial crisis, the UK came close to shared growth, with income growth averaging 2 per cent a year across almost the whole range. Finally, the austerity-Brexit-pandemic years, gave us… READ MORE