City of London report says that Aberdeen and Edinburgh will suffer twice as much as UK average in Tory-led ‘hard’ Brexit’ The economies of every major British city are set to fall under the ‘hard Brexit’ plan being forced through the parliament by the UK Government.
But the economies of the oil and gas based Aberdeen-Grampian and Edinburgh-Lothian regions are set to fall by twice as much as the UK average, according to the findings of a new report published today (27 Jul 2017) by a London-based think-tank.
And the Leader of Scotland's Independence Referendum Party (www.SIRP.scot) – Mark R . Whittet (LLB, BA) said today: “Scots cannot say they weren’t warned about the Brexit economic disaster in advance of last month’s British general election. “Yet they still voted too often for British Unionists parties – knowing that the Tory-led minority UK government will drag Scotland out of the EU against the clear wishes of the vast majority of Scottish voters.”
Economic output in cities as measured by Gross Value Added (GVA) is predicted to be 1.2 per cent lower on average under a ‘soft Brexit’ and 2.3 per cent lower under a ‘hard Brexit’ than if the UK remained in the EU. But cities with high shares of employment in the private knowledge and information-based (KIBS) sectors are more likely to be negatively affected according to the model, particularly under a hard Brexit. In the three cities with the largest private-KIBS sectors - Reading, London and Edinburgh - the predicted loss is equivalent to 2.7 per cent of GVA. Cities that are predicted to be most negatively affected by Brexit – where Edinburgh West was one of the most anti-Brexit seats in Scotland – were more likely to vote remain in the 2016 referendum.
The Leader of Scotland’s Independence Referendum Party added: “Unless Scotland – and SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon wake up – we’ll be hauled off the EU-economic cliff-edge and crash to economic ruin on the rocks of a Hard Brexit.