Brexit regret: Why the 'undeniable disaster' finally hit the British public in 2022

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The Conservatives, Labor and Liberal Democrats did their best to ignore Brexit in 2022, despite a growing mountain of evidence about the economic damage caused by the Kingdom's decision United to leave the EU.< /p>

But 2022 was the year of Brexit regrets, as opinion polls saw a growing number of people saying our exit went badly and record high support to join the block.

And then amended? The Independent took a closer look at the deluge of data on Brexit's painful impact on the economy and growing unpopularity in the polls.

Six years after the public vote, are fans feeling buyer's remorse?

(Getty)

In December, the Center for European Reform (CER) found that Brexit had cost the UK a colossal £33 billion in trade losses, d investment and growth. The CER also estimated the tax loss from Brexit at around £40 billion.

Research - first shared with The Independent - showed that in June of that year, the UK economy was 5.5% smaller than it would have been had the country remained in the EU.

Then there was the impact on food prices. Brexit has cost households more than £5.8 billion in higher supermarket bills, according to research from the Center for Economic Performance published earlier in December.

The experts, based in London School of Economics (LSE), said Brexit had pushed up food prices in the UK by 6% as new trade barriers were a key driver of the country's highest inflation rates in decades .

Brexit has also affected wages. Last June, a damning report by the Resolution Foundation and experts at the LSE revealed that Brexit would reduce the wages of British workers for the rest of the decade, making the whole country "poorer" in the 2020s. .

It found that real wages needed to be £470 per worker lower each year, on average, than if Britain had chosen to stay in the EU. Experts have pointed to an 8% drop in UK 'trade openness' - trade as a share of economic output - since Brexit.