Brexit Drama Costs UK Economy £6.6B Per Quarter

The cost of voting to leave the European Union has been 6.6 billion pounds every quarter for the U.K., according to research from S&P Global Ratings.

S&P Senior Economist Boris Glass said the U.K.’s economy would have been 3 percent larger as of the end of last year had the U.K. not backed an exit in a June 2016 referendum, according to a report in Reuters. The economist said growth rates for the economy would have been 0.7 percent instead of 0.43 percent.

“Immediately after the referendum, the pound fell by about 18 percent. This was the single most pertinent indicator of the impact of the vote and the drag it created, via inflation, has been spreading through the economy,” Glass said in the report. S&P estimated that inflation in the U.K. was 1.8 percent more than it would have been by the third quarter of 2017.

S&P isn’t the only firm to see a big hit to the U.K. economy ever since the vote. According to the news outlet, Goldman Sachs earlier in the week said Brexit has cost the U.K. economy 600 million pounds a week, or 7.8 billion pounds each quarter — even more than S&P calculated.

As it stands now, there is no deal for the U.K. to exit the European Union. Economists, regulators, and lawmakers have been warning that the absence of a deal can have a negative impact on the U.K. economy. As of this week, easyJet can be added to the chorus expressing worry about Brexit. In an interview with the Associated Press, easyJet CEO Johan Lundgren said travelers are reining in spending because of the uncertainty about the U.K.’s future. He said for the second half of 2019 he’s seeing softness in the U.K. and Europe which he thinks is being driven by macroeconomic uncertainty and the unanswered questions surrounding Brexit.

The split from the EU has been controversial from the start, tearing the country apart. Last month, ahead of the vote on how to exit the EU, Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond warned people would be worse off if the U.K. leaves without a deal. The U.S. said it will work with the U.K. in the event a deal couldn’t be reached.