The negative impact of Brexit was downplayed by the Leave campaign - Yorkshire Post Letters

The Yorkshire Post recently reported that Jeremy Hunt, previous Tory chancellor, admitted Brexiteers such as Boris Johnson had overemphasized the benefits of Brexit when they claimed among other things that Brexit will be a win-win for everyone which clearly it isn’t.

Hunt later downplayed the impact of Brexit on exports by quoting from the think tank Policy Exchange that Brexit had not negatively affected EU exports as feared. But Policy Exchange is a right wing conservative think tank who according to Open Democracy receive funding from ExxonMobil, who helped draft the harsh laws applied to climate protesters and the Police Bill designed to control street protests.

This misleading statement was designed to downgrade the many benefits that the UK enjoyed as a member of the EU and comes at a pivotal time when Starmer is planning to reset EU-UK relationships.

Most people now realise that Brexit is bad for the UK; our economy has shrunk by £140bn, the cost to small businesses has been massive with an estimated 30,000 facing bankruptcy or closure plus massive costs for the creative industry amounting to £260m.

I recently had a conversation with the owner of a small independent garage specialising in the repair and sale of classic cars. Talking about Brexit, he said leaving the EU had been a disaster for his work which involves importing car parts from around Europe; he said leaving the EU and Single Market had been negative on both trade and profit.

It’s a disgrace that Brexit happened, its negative effects will be felt for years to come. I feel concerned about young people who were too young to vote in the referendum, 75 per cent of whom believe Brexit was wrong (You Gov).