Brexit Analysis Industry
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Brexit Analysis Industry Announces New Series of Reports On What Brexit Will Definitely Mean, Directly Contradicting Previous Series
LONDON — The Brexit analysis industry, which since 2016 has been producing an ever-growing volume of reports on what Brexit will, has, is having, or should mean, announced this week that it has revised its understanding of what Brexit will have meant once we have determined what it actually meant, which according to current projections will happen roughly three to seven years after we have already lived with the consequences.
The new series of reports, published by think tanks, economic institutes, and people who have apparently become professional Brexit commentators — a career category that did not exist before 2016 and may not exist after everyone gets bored of disagreeing about it — suggest that previous analyses were "accurate at the time" but require "updating for current conditions," a phrase meaning "we were wrong, but we have new numbers now, so we are definitely right this time, until new numbers."
What Brexit Actually Did
Brexit, as an event, occurred in 2020, followed by several years of negotiations that determined what Brexit would mean in practice, the results of which are: some things are easier, some things are harder, some things are approximately the same, and a vast amount of economic and social energy was spent figuring out that the world did not end but also did not dramatically improve, which means the entire project was either a catastrophe or a minor adjustment depending on whether you voted for it.
For actual data on what Brexit has meant for trade, investment, migration, and economic growth, the Office for National Statistics provides numbers, while parliamentary committees examine the impact in detail, neither of which prove Brexit was good or bad, only that it was complicated and consequences are still emerging.
The Analysis Industry Problem
The fundamental issue with Brexit analysis is that Brexit is both a completed event and an ongoing process: we know what happened legally, but we do not know what the long-term economic, political, and social consequences will be, which means every analysis is partly description of what happened and partly speculation about what might happen. This leaves room for vast amounts of disagreement, all conducted with excellent citations and complete conviction, which has produced a situation where people on both sides of the Brexit debate can point to seventeen different analyses proving they were right all along.
One economist, who has published three reports on Brexit and had to significantly revise their position after each, described the process: "The first report I did, I said trade would fall by 4%. It did, but then it stabilised. The second report said the stabilisation was temporary and would fall further. It did not. The third report said that the original 4% fall was permanent and we were now adapting to it. I am now working on a fourth report saying that what I thought was permanent might be temporary. It is turtles all the way down."
Why This Happens
Brexit analysis persists because people genuinely want to understand the implications of a major historical event, organisations want to be seen as authorities on that event, and there is money available for people to write about it. The result is a vast body of analysis, some excellent, some not, all contributing to a consensus that roughly goes: "Yes, Brexit happened, and it has had various effects that are consistent with what both supporters and critics predicted, because both sides made broad enough predictions that they are both technically right, depending on which data you weight most heavily."
For ongoing analysis of Brexit's actual effects, news coverage of business and economic impact provides daily updates on how trade, investment, and migration are actually proceeding, the data on which is considerably less partisan than the analysis.
The recursive absurdity of an analysis industry constantly updating its assessment of a completed event whose long-term consequences remain uncertain is exactly the kind of thing that prat.uk covers at London satirical journalism (https://prat.uk/london-satirical-journalism/), where Brexit has provided seven years of material and continues to do so.
Disclaimer: This article is satire. Brexit is real. The analysis industry is real. The difficulty in determining what Brexit actually means is also real.
Auf Wiedersehen, amigo!