If that were the case how come France, Italy, Spain and Greece don't seem to have benefitted to anything like the same degree?

Because they have a completely different set of economic circumstances and clearly didn't do what they needed to do to leverage their position in the EU to their advantage; and they didn't retain their own currency?

Interesting interview with the French Agriculture Minister on Newsnight last night; he relayed a story of meeting with his UK counterpart pre-referendum during which he asked what would happen if there was Brexit; said counterpart replied, "There will be no Brexit." In his words - "I was more worried about it than he was." Which does seem to bear out the view that the Remain campaign were far too casual about the prospect of Brexit - the political establishment assumed Remain would win, and Boris got on board purely as a strategy to oust his old Eton rival from Downing Street - and ran for the hills when the unthinkable happened.

I see the economy has grown 0.5% since the Brexit vote, rather than shrunk dramatically.

i see that too!

0.5% growth, over which period exactly ?

I'm no rocket scientist (which is a good thing) but, I deal with a diverse range of businesses and to a man, they are currently "not buying".
The inflationary pressures, due to the weakening pound have slowed things down far more than most would have expected.
There was a scramble to take goods at pre-referendum rates (which would cause a small "spike" in demand) but, the current outlook is the gloomiest I have known since the Thatcher era.
Of course, any business involved in the export market will be feeling pretty good at the moment but for the rest, it's going to be a long dark winter.

Also, news that payments into the exchequer are significantly down isn't good news for anyone.

Keep looking on the bright side though, everything is just fine

Last quarter. What's rest of Europe doing?

Well done to Sunderland (Nissan)for securing their mid-term future.

I see the government are denying a "Sweetheart" deal.

Maybe it's Sunderland's reward for being complicit in the Coup de Grace?

I'm feeling better already, the futures bright, but then, why does the hollow feeling grow & grow?

It was funny watching Gove this morning though, I mean, he was getting interviewed by Ben Shephard for God's sake, but even good old Ben had him squirming. It just goes to show the caliber of people running the Government, for a second I nearly said the Country, but then I came back to the real world.

You keep on believing that.
Politicians are duty bound to try and be positive, they have to be.
Remember, we haven't even begun to actual process yet and one thing that is in black and white (ie not conjecture or spin) is the value of Sterling.
The UK is a massive net importer of goods and with 12-15% currency based inflation, what do you think the next 12 months have in store for the uk population.
Any significant rise in inflation will force interest rates to increase and then things will get really interesting.

Btw 2% growth (if the last quarter was to be the trend for the whole year) is not exactly boom time and is below the Governments budgeted forecast. Therefore, even if we are moving forward at this level (2%) further borrowing or cuts will be necessary.

So Nissan threatens to leave the UK for Spain and France to which the government bribed them to stay. Unbelievable. the government is even using it to promote Brexit working! When will the brexit camp ever stop lying?

I act for numerous companies in manufacturing who are losing contracts hand over fist since brexit that it's not even funny anymore. Whilst not on the scale of companies such as Nissan, it is all relative with hundreds of people fearing for their jobs

Regards

King James

Just loving all this Brexit stuff.

It will be fascinating to see what the actual deal will be but the reality is that financially we will be no worse off but no better of either (although in the short term we will be hit hard inflation and increased interest rates).

At the minute it appears that the Uk will pay €5billion to be part of the single market. This might include protection for the financial sectors passport.

There will be a deal not to kick any immigrant-rants out who are already here.

We will have to sub every big employer in the country to stop them threatening to take jobs abroad.

What is likely to be the only change is that we will have some deal to stop new EU immigrants coming here.


So we will have gone through all of this just to satisfy British racists who want to keep foreigners out.


Absolutely hilarious if it was not so tragic.

Why are they racists?

At what point does "anti-immigration" become racism ?

Certainly when people are told to go back to your "own country" or to "go home", the line has been crossed and following the Brexit vote, this has become more common.

Because other than keeping a few foreigners out Britain will get absolutely nothing out of leaving Europe no £350 million for the NHS no real control over the economy because we will still be doing most things through Europe nothing nada.

But still we can tell a lot of East Europeans you are not coming in.

The huge argument going on in the Tory party about what is important in terms of the Brexit discussions is fascinating with some such as Liam Fox saying nothing is more important than controlling immigration and others such as the chancellor saying no the economy comes first.