[tialaramex]

Populism requires that you're popular. Brexit clones were extremely popular for the right across Europe right up until Brexit actually happened, and then suddenly they all remembered they'd never wanted anything to do with such a stupid plan and began scrubbing praise for it from their materials, back to "reform" and tinkering at the edges.

The trick is to be First. You can sell "Just do X and it'll be great" unless the people have already seen what a disaster X is.

[rob74]

Well, the AfD wants Germany to withdraw from the EU, and the only reason why ruling right-wing populist parties in eastern Europe (e.g. Hungary) don't do it is because it's the hand that still feeds them money (despite them continuously biting it).

TBF, Brexit was a particularly bad idea because of the Northern Ireland situation, so others can still feed the illusion that their *exit would be "cleaner"...

[richrichardsson]

Reducing the problems of Brexit to the Northern Ireland situation is quite blinkered.

Businesses (especially smaller ones) have suffered immensely as a result of supply chain issues, lopsided bureaucracy and red-tape.

[michael1999]

And AfD has topped out at 20% after Musk's "help".

[graemep]

> until Brexit actually happened, and then suddenly they all remembered they'd never wanted anything to do with such a stupid plan

Why is Brexit perceived so badly in the EU? Economically the UK has done about as well or better than the other big European economies.

[acdha]

What makes you think the UK is doing better? Most reports have found the opposite, with costs in the hundreds of billions range versus where the economy would otherwise have been:

https://www.euronews.com/business/2024/01/12/brexit-here-is-...

https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/london-mayor-says-brexit-ha...

https://news.sky.com/story/brexit-new-report-suggests-uk-311...

One potential confound is that the UK was starting with a strong position so if you just compare it to, say, Portugal it’s still looking better but that doesn’t tell you the gap wouldn’t have otherwise been even wider.

[graemep]

Look at raw data, not media reports. I posted a link already. The UK's economic growth is very similar to comparable EU economies.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-worldbank?...

[acdha]

That’s one metric but it’s not enough to answer the question and misleading in key ways. Average GDP is not the same as the average person’s income, and you can’t say whether that’s good or bad without also looking at the cost of living. If your income is not going up at the same rate as your expenses that positive trend turns out to be a mirage and that’s where much of the reported pain for Brexit has been since introducing trade barriers makes goods and services more expensive.

[graemep]

GDP is adjusted for inflation.

Some trade barriers have also been lowered since Brexit, reducing costs - e.g. EU protectionist tariffs and quotas on things such as oranges and rice which reduces the cost of living.

The effects of Brexit are tiny compared to the lingering effects of Covid, and the increase in global prices caused by the invasion of Ukraine.

[stevesimmons]

Because Brexit solved nothing and made lots of things worse.

[cinntaile]

Can you show us some statistics to back that up? From the time of brexit until now seems like a good time period.

[graemep]

There you are:

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-worldbank?...

Only Italy has done substantially better, but that is recovery from the aftermath of the 2008 collapse.

[rob74]

Er... that chart shows the UK GDP per capita about on par with France's (even slightly higher) until 2018, and from then on it has been consistently below France - not by a lot, but still noticeable...

[graemep]

A tiny difference and the big difference was that the UK fell back more during covid in 2020. the difference fluctuates from year to year it was only $300 (a 0.5% difference) in 2022.

[Terr_]

In the places that already did X, it will limp along as supporters try to deny that they that they chose something predictably dumb.