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10

Brexit: more or less uncertainty?

Open-access content Monday 3rd October 2016 — updated 5.50pm, Wednesday 29th April 2020

The Brexit vote, both before and after, generated much talk along the lines that it is “a leap into the great unknown”.

The Brexit vote, both before and after, generated much talk along the lines that it is "a leap into the great unknown". The latest to catch my eye in The Actuary magazine, August (bit.ly/2amXjGE) was written by Paul Sweeting. Among other statements, he writes that the Brexit uncertainty means that a company "does not necessarily know what costs it will face, which markets it will be able to access, or even what legislation will be in place".

I suggest that under current circumstances as a member of the EU, Britain is no more sure of the answers to those questions than will be the case after withdrawal from the EU. Is there a company in Britain today under current EU rules that believes the matters of costs, markets and legislation are settled and known? Compare the lot of companies in other countries outside the EU. They don't appear to require an EU-type framework to operate. They have uncertainty to deal with - we all do. Membership of the EU does not reduce uncertainty. Arguably, membership of the EU increases uncertainty, given the much greater complexity in the political process. 

Market-based liberal economies developed the means of creating economic advancement and the growth of living standards long before the EU was merely a conceptual idea. Nothing has changed, and many more countries around the world, more outside the EU than inside, put that experience to good use every day. I expect Britons will, in future years, look back on the ideas such as those expressed by Paul Sweeting and wonder what the nervous tension was all about.


David McNeice

13 September


This article appeared in our October 2016 issue of The Actuary.
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