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A study by the think-tanks Centre for European Reform and UK in a Changing Europe suggests there are 330,000 fewer workers in the UK as a result of Brexit, with sectors such as transport, hospitality and retail have been particularly hard hit.

Elisabetta Cornago, a senior energy researcher at the Centre for European Reform (CER), described the savings as an "impressive response" but said some of the changes, particularly the industrial cutbacks, were temporary rather than "structural.""The behavioural response was driven by price level and the fear of how prices will impact your life. These fears and concerns led consumers to stay on the conservative side and try to limit the hours they had the heating on," Cornago told Euronews.

John Springford of the Centre for European Reform estimates that the negative impact of gratuitously imposing trade barriers on our nearest trading partners – via higher import prices, loss of vital immigrant workers, and general uncertainty affecting business confidence – had cost our economy 5.5% of GDP by the summer of 2022.

Experten der Berliner Denkfabrik Centre for European Reform können den Plänen deshalb einiges abgewinnen. Ihnen zufolge sendet Europa mit den Plänen "ein wichtiges politisches Signal, dass die EU sich nicht kampflos deindustrialisieren wird und dass die Dekarbonisierung eine Chance für eine grüne Industrialisierung ist."

John Springford, deputy director at the Centre for European Reform, estimates that Brexit had cost the UK economy 5.5% of GDP by June 2022.

Together with other factors, such as increased trade barriers with Europe after Brexit, the British economy is 5.5% smaller than it otherwise would have been, according to estimates by John Springford, the deputy director at the Center for European Reform think tank in London. 

John Springford for the Centre for European Reform conducts a ‘doppelgänger’ analysis to explore the costs of Brexit. This analysis uses statistical techniques to find the best combination of other countries that match a range of economic variables for the UK before the referendum, and uses this same combination to project what might have happened thereafter.

Charles Grant, director of the think tank the Centre for European Reform, said Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has made Sunak and Macron realize “they need to get on better.”“Britain and France can’t be at loggerheads if that’s going to make the West weaker vis-a-vis Russia, and potentially China as well,” he said.