Did Brexit make you richer or poorer compared with the EU and why?

MATCH OF THE DAY: SPENDING POWER — EU 3, UK 0

Brexit was sold as a route to a richer Britain. Ten years on, the World Bank's GDP-per-capita, PPP line says the opposite. That matters now because Keir Starmer inherits not just a weak growth story, but a weaker per-person prosperity story. Britain’s problem on spending power is not that the economy never moved. It is that the gains stopped keeping Britain ahead of Europe.

1 PROBLEM

Start with the scoreboard. In the dataset, Britain was slightly ahead of the EU in 2012: $47,551 international dollars per head against $46,546.7. In 2019 it was still just in front: $52,646 to $52,607.8. By 2024 the line had flipped: the UK was on $52,518, the EU on $56,042.6. That is not statistical fog. It is a change of position. The ONS shows the same pattern at home: by Q2 2024 total real GDP was 2.9% above its pre-pandemic level, while real GDP per head was still 0.6% below. Britain did not run out of economy. It ran out of economy per person.

3 REASONS

1) PLAN — Britain had a promise, not a prosperity route

The Brexit sales pitch was clear enough: more freedom, more speed, more wealth. The trouble is that slogans do not raise GDP per head. The OBR says the post-Brexit trading settlement leaves UK exports and imports around 15% lower in the long run than inside the EU, and long-run productivity 4% lower too. That is not a route-map to higher spending power. By contrast, the EU kept the Single Market logic and the wider convergence machinery designed to narrow gaps across the bloc. Britain had a theory of sovereignty. Europe kept an economic architecture. Plan score: UK 3/10, EU 7/10.

2) POLICY — Europe kept the levers that compound

If Plan is the route, Policy is the kit bag. Here the contrast is awkward for Britain. The UK chose a higher-friction trading settlement; the EU kept the scale effects of the Single Market, plus regional and labour-market tools that feed prosperity per head over time. On childcare, the EU’s Barcelona-target approach is explicitly tied to women’s employment. Britain has now expanded free childcare for working parents, covering children aged 9 months to 4 years in England, but the rollout only began in 2024–25. Europe kept the compounding levers. Britain spent years rediscovering one of them. Policy score: UK 4/10, EU 7/10.

3) PERFORMANCE — Europe can point to working models

This is the part Britain really does not like: the playbook is not theoretical. It already exists. In Denmark, the OECD points to a reform mix of tax changes, migration, childcare and R&D support with a combined 10-year GDP-level impact of 1.3%. On childcare, the JRC finds that raising formal coverage for under-3s to 50% can lift female labour supply from 4% to 48%, depending on the country. Those are real European operating models for raising employment, output and earnings per head. Britain does not lack examples. It lacks a joined-up version of its own. Performance score: UK 4/10, EU 8/10.

FINAL WHISTLE

So the score is fair: EU 3, UK 0.

Europe wins on plan, policy and performance. Britain’s problem on spending power is not that growth disappeared. It is that Britain built a weaker prosperity machine: less scale, weaker productivity transmission, and thinner policy models for turning output into gains per head. That is why the dataset now shows Britain below the EU average, and why the broader Brexit evidence base keeps pointing in the same direction. The VoxEU estimate is that by 2025 UK GDP per capita was 6–8% lower than it would have been without Brexit.

Starmer did not create that inheritance. But he does now own the test. If he wants to prove Britain can get richer again, he cannot hide behind total GDP headlines. The real question is simpler and nastier: can Britain move back above Europe on prosperity per head? Until that line turns, the recovery story is still playing away from home.

So on this trend, where do you think the UK will be by 2030? Test your forecasting skills!

Tomorrow's match will ask how much financial weight Britain still carries in the world? We'll see the battle over who has the most foreign exchange reserves.

And on Saturday, we bring all 5 matches together and show you who won the Brexit Economic League.