We have been pounded, pulverised and blown up to smithereens over this Brexit thing haven’t we? But as ever: we will survive. No matter what happens, this is the U.K. and we can keep calm. Plus, whether we like it or not, it is happened. So here we are going to look for some positives in the post-vote environment before we begin the process of actually leaving the EU.
Positives:
The low value of the British pound means more incoming EU, CN and US tourism. Our digital research shows us that searches for inbound flight and hotel bookings has increased by 500% since the referendum vote and subsequent fall in the £.
July saw the highest ever month for inbound tourism and the tourist £ spent in the UK reached £2.5bn – a 4% increase on last year according to Visit Britain.
Retail nationwide has increased by 1.4% since July 2016 and “UK will have 3.6% increase in tourism, 0.5% more than the world average of 3.1%” predicted by World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC)
Investment demand in UK property is on the increase with David Adams, the head of John Taylor’s real-estate office in London, stating that he had made verbal agreements on £50 million ($68 million) in sales in the three days following the vote—more than the total since the beginning of the year.
Plus, within the city, external investment is on the increase as global equity and investment firms invest in UK business in an advantageous exchange market.
Economists for Brexit have stipulated that Brexit will be good for the economy as we can create independent tariffs which will make the U.K. more competitive outside the EU. This is something that we definitely should be taking advantage of.
Concerns:
However, not everybody is convinced. Tourism interest may be marred by a negative perception of the UK – particularly as the post-vote ‘legitimisation’ of race crime seems not to be abating.
Inbound property investment is likely to be in the buy-to-let market thus further inflating rents whilst stifling resident’s chances of getting on to the property ladder. See analysis in NewStatesman.
And will foreign trade advantages from global conglomerates be sustainable when regulatory policy changes as we extract ourselves from the EU? Nobody as yet knows…
Essentially Brexit dwarfs other concerns because of its size, speed and unpredictability. However many economists have predicted a 3% chance of getting into a recession, the lowest in the developing world.
So, whilst we have yet to fully understand the future impact of Brexit and the long-term consequences of it, the outlook is overall sentiment of the market is that it is going to be a big blow, but we will take it.
