Soft Brexit Research Articles

Trade, Businesses, and Economy of U.K. Post-Brexit— A Quantitative Analysis

Many studies have been carried out on Brexit’s economic impact on the UK, EU27, the US, and the rest of the world. Depending on the assumption of whether Brexit will be a hard Brexit or a soft Brexit, almost all studies predicted Blows to the economies of the UK and the EU, with a more severe blow to the UK economy. With the Trade Co-operation Agreement signed by the end of the year 2020 and the actual divorce of the UK from the EU with effect from 01-01-2021, the actual effects of Brexit came to reflect in various economic data reported by various national and international agencies. This paper makes an effort to analyse these hard data and examine the Brexit impacts on various sectors. It has also taken clues from the various surveys on the problems faced by businesses on the border, shortage of labour, etc. In February 2023, a protocol on Northern Ireland was finalized which became a part of the EU-UK withdrawal agreement that now ensures that a hard border is avoided for the UK export items on the island. This protocol was agreed upon between the United Kingdom, Northern Ireland (UK), and the European Union (EU) as the final settlement designed to protect Ireland’s economy and Belfast Agreement. The study concludes that the UK has done a relatively good job of managing the inevitable Brexit disruptions, including transitional measures for border softening. In order to achieve the laudable goal of having the best border in the world by the year 2025, the UK will require streamlining the Regulatory Control Systems. The UK has also entered into a Comprehensive Agreement with Trans-Pacific Partnership. But much is still to be done on the Domestic Regulatory Reforms front. Unless the UK uses the coming years to engage in putting in place proper, meaningful, and comprehensive regulatory reforms, the opportunities for Brexit may be wasted.

In governments we trust: A two-country Brexit field experiment on perceived uncertainty as mediator for consumer decisions

For several years, the Brexit has been an ongoing political crisis with high uncertainty that nonetheless affects us in many ways. Until now, the academic debate has mainly emphasized the political, economic and legal consequences, while disregarding the social-psychological effects of the crisis. This article examined the relationships between trust in UK and EU government and perceived uncertainty, and how these relationships affected consumers’ choices (i.e., travelling decisions). We assessed these relationships in a two-country Brexit field experiment (UK and Germany; N = 1,228) confirming moderation by country differences, where trust in one’s own government has a weaker impact. In turn, the soft and hard Brexit scenarios moderated these country differences: for the British sample, the effect of trust in the EU government is stronger for a hard Brexit, while Germans showed a reversed and counterintuitive structure for trust in the UK government.

Policy analysis indicates health-sensitive trade and subsidy reforms are needed in the UK to avoid adverse dietary health impacts post-Brexit.

The United Kingdom's food system will be greatly impacted by Brexit-related trade deals and policy developments-with implications for dietary risk factors and public health. Here we use an integrated economic-health modelling framework to analyse the impacts of different policy approaches to Brexit. A 'soft Brexit' that is in line with the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement increases diet-related mortality in the United Kingdom as costs for health-promoting and import-dependent foods increase and their consumption decreases. Negotiating free-trade agreements with the United States and Commonwealth countries as part of a 'global Britain' approach could triple the negative health impacts of Brexit as greater availability of energy-dense foods increases weight-related risks without meaningfully reducing dietary risks. Eliminating import tariffs on health-sensitive horticultural products could mitigate the negative health impacts of Brexit, and reforming agricultural subsidies to incentivize greater domestic horticultural production could lead to net health gains. Combining these health-sensitive approaches to trade policy and subsidy reform doubled the health gains, offering a promising approach for mitigating the detrimental impacts Brexit could have on dietary health in the United Kingdom.

Strategic opportunities: Leveraging decision-making indicators

Politicians tend to use the word opportunity as a catch-all term. This paper is contending that opportunities can be classified as tangible or intangible. Lawmakers do not appear to consider the idea that opportunities are hierarchical or link to a firms’ ability to leverage opportunities. The context for the paper is Brexit and its strategic implications. Furthermore, a hard Brexit will throw up more intangible opportunities than tangible opportunities, which suggests that firms will require different strategies for hard Brexit and soft Brexit environments. This paper suggests that there are two possible dominant strategies available to executives, namely leverage logic and opportunity logic, and the application of the strategies is dependent on the type of Brexit situation. The time horizon to develop and refine the dominant strategies is dependent on the type of Brexit environment, with a hard Brexit requiring the longest time horizon.

Semantics of ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ in relation to Brexit

This paper analyses the semantics of ‘hardness’ and ‘softness’ in relation to the noun ‘Brexit’ in a news corpus. These concrete descriptions are frequently applied metaphorically to the complex political process of a nation exiting an economic union. First there is a discussion about what other kinds of things can be hard and soft in the NOW (‘News on the Web’) corpus, followed by an analysis of synonyms for hard Brexit and soft Brexit, evaluating their semantic prosody. Only four genuine collocations with the synonyms of hard Brexit have been found in the corpus, whereas seven have been found for soft Brexit. The paper shows how a corpus can be analysed to demonstrate the way in which the semantic prosody of a metaphorical description is negotiated in part through synonyms that exaggerate or mitigate its positive or negative associations.

РОЗВИТОК "ОСОБЛИВИХ ВІДНОСИН" США ТА ВЕЛИКОЇ БРИТАНІЇ ЗА АДМІНІСТРАЦІЇ ДОНАЛЬДА ТРАМПА (2017-2021)

An article is an attempt to study «special relationships» between the United States and Great Britain. The author mentioned that the presidential elections in the USA and the fact that Donald Trump became a new president reflected on the relationships between the United States and Great Britain. The attention is given to the role of personality in states’ relationships. The article illustrates that Donald Trump`s populism in his speeches played a negative role for making stable relationships with the UK. More specifically, Donald Trump's criticism of London's mayor Sadiq Khan, Scotland Yard evocated a negative social reaction in Great Britain. As shown in the article, the citizens of the United Kingdom were shocked by Donald Trump`s islamophobia and his Facebook post of the far-right organization «Britain first». Indeed, it was the reason for massive protests during Donald Trump's official visit to the United Kingdom in 2018. The reference should be made to the fact that in 2016 the UK citizens decided to leave European Union. Despite the fact that Donald Trump approved this decision he criticized British prime-minister Theresa May for soft Brexit. As shown in the article contrary to the strong criticism of the British government Donald Trump visited Great Britain three times during his presidential term. These official trips were directed on normalization of Anglo-American relationships. Queen Elizabeth twice met Donald Trump and they both mentioned that special relationships are important for their countries. Research has shown that during Boris Johnson’s premiership US-UK relations became stronger. This factor is due to close Trump`s and Johnson's political views. The article illustrates that the United States and Great Britain still have special relationships. Countries have strong intelligence, military and nuclear cooperation. Both the US and the UK are still key economical partners and they are interested in safety relationships.

Brexit: What economic impacts does the literature anticipate?

The results of the June 2016 referendum in favour of the UK leaving the EU opened a period of huge economic and political uncertainty in the UK, and in the EU27. A large number of official and academic analyses have been published that address the economic impact of different modalities of Brexit. Section 1 analyses possible models for the future UK-EU relationship, from remaining in the single market and in the customs union, to a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) or world trade organization (WTO) rules. Section 1 also discusses the future of UK trade regulations (tariff and non-tariff barriers, trade agreements) and the various channels through which Brexit could have an impact on the UK economy (trade, foreign direct investment (FDI), migration, productivity, fiscal policy). The UK must make a trade-off between ensuring access to the EU market and increasing its regulatory autonomy. Section 2 surveys studies released on the impacts of Brexit, over short- and long-term horizons, under different scenarios, from a soft Brexit to a hard Brexit and a no deal scenario. These studies provide very different results depending on the methods they use and the assumptions they adopt on the future relationship between the UK and the EU27, mainly on how they view the effects of trade openness and regulations on productivity, in level as in growth rate. Studies using gravity models and computable general equilibrium models generally find negative but small effects on UK GDP. Some studies increase these effects by adding the negative impact of a less open UK economy on labour productivity growth, even if Brexiteers want to open the UK to non-EU economies. Others believe that a liberalisation shock could boost output growth, but the UK is already a very liberal economy. The impact of Brexit on the GDP of the EU27 countries is on average 4 to 5 times smaller than on UK GDP, although some countries (Ireland in particular) are more affected. In the shorter term, uncertainty about Brexit has a negative effect on investment and exports, which is partly offset by lower interest rates and exchange rates.JEL codes: F10

Европейская идентичность Шотландии в контексте Брекзита

The withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union focused the issue of cleavage of British statehood by European criteria. According to the results of sociological surveys and polls, the distribution of preferences of Brexit is correlated with the national identification matrix. Most Scots and Irish of United Kingdom support remaining the membership in the European Union, while the most English defend soft or hard Brexit. However, the depth of such cleavage underlines the uncertainty in the preferences of citizens who identify as British in general. In the context of the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the European Union, the question of the European identity of Scots was also underlines by Scotland's regional political actors. This article is aimed to the analysis of the dynamics of the European identity of the Scottish community in 2016–2020 under Brexit conditions. The author concludes that the share of Scots with European identities increased after 2016, and Brexit was a key factor in the dynamics. At the same time, the actualization of European identity among the Scottish community is connected with the pragmatic strategy of the Scottish community and regional political actors to neutralize the negative economic and social effects of Brexit and plays an instrumental role in the national and European political arenas. The article starts with an excursion to the issues of national identity in the modern United Kingdom in the studies of Western and Russian authors. Then, based on an analysis of sociological data, the question of the European identity of Scots was raised, as well as the role of the national identity of United Kingdom citizens in the issue of membership in the European Union. At the end of the article, author proposes the description of the position and strategy of the Scottish community on the issue of Brexit.

The Impact of the Brexit on the Living Standards and Quality of Life in Britain

The Object of the Study. Living standards and quality of life of the population in Great Britain. The Subject of the Study. The Brexit. The Purpose of the Study is exposing the impact of the Brexit on the living standards and quality of life in the country. The Main Provisions of the Article. Following a June 2016 referendum on continued European Union membership in which 52% voted to leave and 48% voted to stay the UK government announced the country's withdrawal from the EC (Brexit). In March 2017 it formally began the withdrawal process. The withdrawal was delayed by deadlock in the UK parliament. Having failed to get her agreement with the EC approved, Theresa May resigned as Prime Minister in July 2019 and was succeeded by Boris Johnson, an active supporter of the Brexit. An early general election was then held on 12 December. The Conservatives won a large majority. As a result, the parliament ratified the withdrawal agreement, and the UK formally left the EU on 31 January 2020. This began a transition period that is set to end on 31 December 2020, during which the UK and EU will negotiate their future relationship. The first round of negotiations between London and Brussels began in March 2020. The author investigates the consequences of the withdrawal of Great Britain from the EC on the living standards and quality of life, economic situation, labour market, social policy of the government. in this country. It analyzes on the impact of the Brexit on the major elements of human capital: education, science, health, living conditions, ecology. It found that short-term forecasts of what would happen immediately after the Brexit referendum were too pessimistic. Nowadays it is very difficult to give an accurate estimate of the future effect of the Brexit on cost of living in Great Britain – many essential issues in the relations between the UK and the EC remain open. Besides, the coronavirus crisis and lockdown measures may cause the grave damage to growth and jobs. Much evidence shows that in the medium- and long-term leaving the European Union damage the British economy and thus reduce the UK's real per-capita income level and may adversely affect jobs and earnings, income and wealth, life expectancy, education and skills, academic research, health status, environmental quality and subjective well-being in the UK. Finally, the author analyses the impact on the economic and social life in Great Britain of different Brexit scenarios after the end of the transition period. The consequences will differ sharply depending on whether the UK does a Soft or Hard (no deal) Brexit.

Brexit and its Impact on the Pound in the Foreign Exchange Market

Abstract In this paper we outline the impact and likely future impact of Brexit on the pound. We argue that Brexit implies a significant depreciation of the pound and the degree of depreciation required is heavily linked to whether there will be a soft or hard Brexit. We find that the pound has had broadly similar depreciations to date against both the dollar and the euro. Brexit has considerably raised UK economic policy uncertainty and this, in turn, has at times led to an significant increase in future implied volatility of the pound. While there is an overall link between the state of the ongoing Brexit negotiations with the European Union and movements in the pound in the foreign exchange market, the link is not especially strong unless the perception that the negotiations are going badly has exceeded 60%.

Delegation and Devolution After Brexit: A Revised Theory of Intergovernmental Policymaking

British institutions allow the central government to make the key choices regarding the devolution of EU powers, but what incentives does it face when choosing whether to centralize or devolve authority post-Brexit? We offer a formal theory of the delegation and devolution of powers under both and Brexit scenarios that produces four main findings. First, when structural independence is less effective in reducing policy drift and incentivizing expertise for both European and territorial agents, hard Brexit yields more devolved policy-making. Second, however, the extent to which structural independence decreases policy drift and capacity acquisition does not influence the devolution choice of the central government. Third, if Westminster does not see a clear difference in the effect of independence on drift or expertise in the European or regional agencies, territorial agencies will enjoy at least as much independence as they did pre-Brexit. Fourth, a soft Brexit will lead to a decrease in devolution and structural independence compared with pre-Brexit levels. We also argue that technical policies will experience more devolved authority, while ideological policies will be more centralized.

Making sense of Brexit losses: An in-depth review of macroeconomic studies

Almost all economic assessments of Brexit conclude that there would be significant losses for both the UK and the EU. This paper examines the driving forces behind these results. We consider the strong economic relationships between the UK and EU both at the sectoral and macroeconomic levels that are at risk from Brexit. We review fifteen studies that explore various Brexit scenarios (hard and soft) and explain why their different methodologies and assumptions yield different degrees of economic damage. Our review concludes that GDP losses for the UK from a hard Brexit range from 1.6% to 7.8%, while a soft Brexit would moderate the losses by roughly half. We also find that potential UK trade agreements with third countries could partially compensate for significant Brexit losses.

Brexit – What's Public International Law Got to Do with it

Everybody is scared of what will come in case the UK leaves the EU without an agreement. However, the chance for an agreement is not yet off the table. The aim of this article is, therefore, to elaborate whether and how public international law provides for a stable legal system in both situations: Either, a “soft Brexit” will be shaped by one or more international agreements, as provided for by Article 50(2) TEU. Here, the authors conclude that the customary rules on treaty law will apply to all agreements between the UK and the EU as well to treaties between the EU and third states. Equally, international law will play a crucial role in the case of a “hard Brexit”, i.e. when no agreement is reached. Here, international law will function as a safety net. This will be demonstrated on the basis of the most contentious issues. The authors argue that while the UK’s financial obligations, the rights of EU and UK citizens, the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice and the most important WTO rules will continue to apply by virtue of international law, some WTO norms require negotiations in order to become fully operational. In a last step, it will be shown that international law allows to revoke the withdrawal notice.

A Crisis for Both Parties

A Crisis for Both Parties

Brexit: signs of disintegration of the EU customs union under the conditions of globalization

The processes of changing the world's space, turning it into a single zone, the unimpeded movement of goods, services, information, capital are aspects of the globalization of world economies. In this space, ideas that contribute to the development of relevant institutional formations and form their communicative connections are more freely distributed. Ukraine is on the way to solving the European integration tasks defined in the Association Agreement with the EU, the implementation of customs legislation, the purpose of which is not only the establishment and existence of a free trade zone, but also a more in-depth integration. The purpose of the article is to review possible scenarios concerning the conditions of movement of goods across the customs border, in the event of a final decision on the withdrawal of Great Britain from the EU Customs Unio Today, it has already been recognized that the integration persistence of the EU Customs Union was threatened by the name Brexit. This phenomenon, as a challenge to integration in a globalized world, gives impetus to a moderate choice of concept and form of integration for the future perspective of economic development of the member countries and candidate -countries for membership in the Community. The European integration policy of Ukraine's economic policy, along with urgent issues requiring a priority solution and fulfillment of obligations, should also be considered under the criterion of probable risks and threats to national interests. The article gives moderate arguments from UK analysts regarding the UK's exit from the EU, the urgent issues regarding the varied prospects of customs relations between the European Union and the UK, as well as the EU Customs Union. Influence of possible scenarios of "soft Brexit", "hard Brexit" on foreign economic activity of the country and its activity.

Lessons Learned from the British Exit from the European Union for Indonesia and the ASEAN Economic Community

A soft Brexit scenario will include an implementation period from the day the UK formally leaves the EU to 31 December 2020. During the implementation period, the UK will continue to be functionally treated as an EU member state and remain a party to EU international agreement. Associated with the ASEAN single market, should be considered the readiness of Indonesian regulations and legislations that in sectorial concerns at least three aforementioned legal instruments to be harmonized with the laws of the ASEAN countries. Important findings were shown by the research from the perspectives of business law, especially, capital investment law, intellectual property and international trade law that Brexit has significant impact for EU itself, Indonesia and also AEC.

Brexit: Everyone Loses, but Britain Loses the Most

This paper examines 12 economic simulation models that estimate the impact of Brexit. We provide their range of results and explain their associated assumptions and methodologies (macroeconometric models, computable general equilibrium [CGE] models, or mixed approaches). CGE models simulate the operation of market economies, solving for changes in equilibrium prices and quantities (production, employment, demand, and international trade) for all sectors in the economy. Macroeconometric models focus on economic aggregates and macro shocks, such as interest rates, the exchange rate, inflation, risk, uncertainty, and government expenditure/revenue. Most of the studies find adverse effects for the UK and the EU-27. The UK's GDP losses from a hard Brexit (reversion to World Trade Organization rules due to a lack of UK-EU agreement) range from –1.2 to –4.5 percent in most of the models analyzed. A soft Brexit (e.g., Norway arrangement, which seems in line with the nonbinding text of the political declaration of November 14, 2018 on the future EU-UK relationship) has about half the negative impact of a hard Brexit. Only two of the models derive gains for the UK after Brexit because they are based on unrealistic assumptions. We analyze more deeply a CGE model that includes productivity and firms' selection effects within manufacturing sectors a la Melitz (2003) and the operations of foreign multinationals in services. Based on this latest model, we provide a complete overview and explanation of the likely economic impact of Brexit on a wide range of macroeconomic variables, namely GDP, wages, private consumption, capital remuneration, aggregate exports, aggregate imports, and the consumer price index.

The impacts of international migration on the UK’s ethnic populations

ABSTRACT The United Kingdom faces demographic uncertainty, as negotiations for leaving the European Union (Brexit) proceed. Brexit has implications for international migration into and out of the UK, dependent on future immigration policy and on how attractive the UK will be as a labour market. At the same time, the UK population is experiencing ethnic diversification, consequent on past immigration. To explore the UK’s future ethnic diversity, we run four projection scenarios. Three international migration scenarios, varying by the extent of the break with the EU, are implemented together with a reference projection assuming zero international migration. Ethnic groups are differently affected by these migration scenarios, depending on the contribution of international migration to population growth and the extent of demographic momentum. The White British and Irish lose population under all Brexit scenarios and the Black Caribbean population declines in all but one scenario. The White Other, Indian, Chinese, Other Asian and Other groups will show much lower growth under Soft and Hard Brexit scenarios. The growth of the Mixed, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Black African and Black Other groups will only be affected marginally. Under every scenario, however, the UK’s population is projected to continue to grow, age and diversify.

Brexit and UK Energy Security: Perspectives from Unconventional Gas Investment and the Effects of Shale Gas on UK Energy Prices

Many aspects of the present and future effects on the UK economy, industry, and households, of Brexit have been researched. One thing which appears certain about Brexit is the shadow of uncertainty it casts on the future of business in the UK and its telling effects on the UK economy. It is believed that Brexit has negatively affected the level of investments in the UK, including investments in energy and crucially the upstream oil and gas, with the UK North Sea being starved of investments since 2014, leading already to increased energy bills. The UK is a net importer of natural gas—a major source of its energy, with some dependence on supplies from interconnectors from Europe. At the same time, UK energy companies participate in the common energy market which enables them to undertake arbitrage trading under the common market rules. However, both of these benefits could be lost under a Brexit scenario where the UK and EU come to a no-deal or hard border arrangement. Meanwhile, domestic production of energy in the UK has declined for nearly two decades now and import bills for natural gas are growing—they were £14.2 billion in 2017; £11.7 billion in 2016 and £13.4 billion in 2015—with Government projections indicating an upward trajectory for natural gas imports. It is however believed that the UK has great potential to exploit shale gas to her advantage in order to reduce her reliance on foreign energy which is: (1) less predictable in terms of supply and price affordability and (2) dependent on exchange rates—a primary means through which energy prices increased in 2016/17 post-Brexit referendum vote. The current study extends discussions on shale gas to cover a review of the potential of natural gas from shale formations to cushion UK households against further erratic gas prices due to Brexit and also assesses the potential effects Brexit may have had on the level of investments in shale gas, in order to suggest policy options for government consideration. Contrary to popular studies, we find evidence to suggest that shale gas has the potential to reduce energy prices for UK businesses and households at commercial extractions, under both hard and soft Brexit scenarios, but with more benefits under hard Brexit. Importantly, we find that from 2008 to 2017, average UK net export of natural gas was 5,191 GWh per year to the EU. We also find and argue that Brexit may have starved the nascent fracking industry of investments in a similar way it did to investments in conventional oil and gas and could have increased investor risk premium for shale gas development, the ultimate effect of which was a categorisation of fracking (company stock) as riskier asset for investors on the London Stock Exchange. We recommend that shale gas development be expedited to maximise its benefits to UK energy consumers post-Brexit or economic benefits from the resource could be diminished by rising operator costs due to delays and effects of the public’s perceived negative opinion of the method of extraction.

Brexit and the Future of UK Capitalism

Brexit and the Future of <scp>UK</scp> Capitalism