'Hard Brexit with no trade deal could cost UK economy £400billion by 2030'

You probably won't remember this, but before it was fashionable to accuse the EU of swamping us in red tape, the red tops frequently aimed similar criticism at the UK government.

Maybe, but that doesn't mean EU regulation is a good thing. Frankly a concerted push towards ISO standards would be far more beneficial than more EU standards.

"18 per cent loss of GDP growth by the end of the next decade."

If £400,000M is 18% of GDP growth, then GDP growth if we did have a trade deal would be £2,222,222M and it would be £1,822,222M if we didn't have a trade deal.

Our current GDP is £1,922,626M

I don't know about you, but I am not greedy. If the UK had a GDP of £3,744,848M by 2030 I would settle for that.

The problem with a trade deal is that it would take an awful lot of time and effort and be a major distraction from buying golden elephants to decorate the M6.

And the moral of this story is that it is a number plucked from thin air

We don't know if any of them are accurate. Because guess what. We're still in the EU. The biggest concern is that the vast majority of reputable forecasts predict that brexit is going to do economic harm.

imagine being dumb enough to think that because economic forecasts haven't been accurate (which isn't true), it'll automatically mean the exact opposite will happen. You have reached peak stupidity. Well done.

Are these the reputable forecasts that said we would be in recession now with hundreds of thousands of jobs already lost and all the big city banks already leaving the city as opposed to the ~1.5% growth that we have seen in the year since the referendum, the average of nearly a thousand jobs a day added to the economy, and the banks having minimal job exodus and plenty of people moving in?

It is the same people over and over again predicting doom if we go against the European Project and again and again being wrong about it. The OECD said that joining the ERM would be good (see Black Wednesday), that joining the Euro would be a good thing (see Eurozone crisis), and predicted significantly reduced 2016 growth in the event of a leave vote. Unsurprisingly today then their £40m from the European Commission helped pay for them saying that we should reverse brexit was reported the BBC overlooked these things and instead focused on the thing that almost everybody agreed would happen: sterling would stop being overpriced.

Brexit hasn't happened yet. Try again. (Wait, are you seriously bragging about 1.5% growth?)

Again, not an argument. You can't look at past examples and conclude that current studies are wrong. That's lazy. But you can get away with this because it's TSR but in an academic environment you'll be ripped apart.

These studies weigh up the probabilities of what sort of deal we get. And then they use that weighted system to predict what the economic impact of that is using advanced statistics tools. They're by no means a certainty and don't account for any unknown variables. But your whole argument is based on this idea that suddenly a new variable pop up out of nowhere and help brexit. Ironically every time say "past studies aren't accurate" you cite events whereby what actually occurred was WORSE than what was first foreseen...

All we can do is hope for the best. I hope for the sake of our country that brexit is successful and brings prosperity. But im not going to ignore experts.

Oh I do love the "brexit hasn't happened yet" when people bring up the forecasts for the last 12 months, I mean if these forecasters are reporting their 2018/19 forecasts as 2016/17 they definitely can't be taken seriously.

Specifically for the OECD forecast lets look at the reporting on it and let's not bother with the express, let's go for the independent: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/oecd-warns-of-significant-brexit-impact-on-uk-growth-a7060081.html

"Brexit-related uncertainty has prompted the OECD to downgrade its growth forecast for the UK this year to just 1.7 per cent, sharply down from the 2.1 per cent GDP expansion the Paris-based economic organisation was forecasting only in February."

So the June forecast showed 1.7% the actual final figure, but with this caveat (which I actually slightly misread): a vote to lead would lead to a reduction in growth vs staying in the EU of 0.5% for 2017 and 2018 and 1.5% in 2019 (the hit in 2016 isn't explicitly mentioned).

The EU and its predecessors have used the same playbook for decades with no real evidence to support it. Why did we join in the first place? Ultimately because the world wars did not hit us as hard economically as continental neighbours and we started from a stronger position anyway, consequently post war they had far stronger growth than us for longer due to a bigger and longer reconstruction effort, having to play catch up, ironically it all ended in the 70s and they all slowed down to the same pace as the UK. We had to join because it was the only way to enjoy their levels of growth and not become an irrelevance, we did enjoy their levels of growth but not because we had accelerated. Time and time again it's "go along with the European project or face ruin" even though going with the flow is what has caused that ruin (again, black wednesday and the eurozone crisis)

It is also some interesting chicanery to say that because the way in which the forecasts have been wrong is such that the outcome is worse therefore this time that too will be the case, the forecast isn't wrong because it's predicting good news that turns out bad but because it is predicting bad and will be even worse. I'm also quite confused as to how 1% growth in the second half of last year is worse than <1% growth over the same period, or recession as 71% of these economists you're putting your faith in forecast. Gyles Brandreth put it perfectly last year on HIGNFY when talking about leaving the ERM "At the beginning of the day we did not know what was going to happen, while it was happening we didn't know what was happening, and when it had happened we did not know what had happened."

p.s. my favourite economic forecast is the inflation forecasts since, in recent years at least, no matter what the forecast for the next few years is from 3 or 4 years in the future it will be 2% and stay there forever more.

p.s. my favourite economic forecast is the inflation forecasts since, in recent years at least, no matter what the forecast for the next few years is from 3 or 4 years in the future it will be 2% and stay there forever more.

Can Theresa May just her **** together and stop telling us how hard brexit will be (We knew this last year) and just get on with it. DO SOMETHING, MAKE PROGRESS

She can't. The EU is facing a lot of internal issues - Eurosceptics in numerous countries are on the rise and everyone is waiting with baited breath to see how Brexit goes. You have separatists in Italy, Spain and numerous other countries rattling sabers and the EUs power is on the wane at the moment.

The EU needs to walk a fine line - They need to make Brexit punishing without it being so terrible that sympathy is drummed up for Britain. They need the world to think it's 'Britain's Fault'. The only way for the EU to win is for Britain to lose while Britain doesn't want to lose.

If Britain walks away smelling like roses, there is a real argument for leaving Europe for the other anti-EU parties.

So, Britain has to try to negotiate with a party that wants Britain to fail and fail spectacularly and in fact -needs- Britain to fail spectacularly for its own well being.

The best possible scenario for Britain is that Britain prepares for a no-deal Brexit and draws up trade agreements to be signed and ratified the day we leave. CANZUK comes to mind as a potential winning possibility for Britain in the Brexit deal.

If Britain appears to be prepared for a no-deal Brexit, Britain will get a far better deal than if they go in trying to be accommodating. If Britain appears to be accommodating, the EU will push for every concession it will and try to get the deal to be punitive and hurt Britain as much as possible.