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At the beginning of last week, the good folks who keep the Oxford English Dictionary up to date informed us that the use of the word Brexit is down 80%, compared to last year.
It was one of many interesting findings in the Oxford Languages Word of the Year report. And generally, in these unprecedented times, they couldn’t agree on a single word or phrase to sum up the year. (Although the unprecedented use of the word rose to levels that were, in fact, unprecedented.)
Of course, it was all due to the new Coronavirus, or Covid-19, or just Covid, all words that have skyrocketed in everyday use, for pretty obvious reasons. Like the word pandemic.
Then there were what we might call the aftermath of Covid, words that rose in popular usage due to our collective response to the pandemic.
Words like “remotely”, the use of which increased by 300%. Or expand on the word “reactivate,” which enjoyed a 500% increase in use. Furloughed was an old US Army term for leave, almost unknown on this side of the Atlantic until March.
Circuit Breaker saw a large increase in use in Singapore in April, but only took off as a term in Britain in October. He was a stand-in for Lockdown, one of the first candidates for the word of the year.
So it is understandable that Brexit, the word, took a hit in everyday use. And, furthermore, Britain left the European Union at the end of January. Work done, huh?
Well, not quite, because, as we know, there has been a transition period, in which most things stayed the same. But now we count the days until the end of that period and the intrusion into our lives of what Brexit really means.
Which is primarily a sharp increase in bureaucracy, red tape, and customs officials for anyone doing business between Britain and its biggest trading partner, the European Union.
In the middle of the week another report appeared, putting numbers on those words. This was the Office of Budgetary Responsibility, the UK version of the Fiscal Advisory Council, which established an economic forecast that was used as the basis for his government’s spending plan for the coming year.
Naturally, it was also heavily fraught with Covid fallout, such as the highest level of peacetime debt ever recorded in Britain’s long history, necessary to keep the economy afloat.
Why? Because the pandemic had led to a shutdown, in which those who could work remotely, and those who couldn’t were licensed, paid for with money borrowed from the British government.
That will stop, and a million Britons will lose their jobs in the coming months.
This year’s production has fallen more than 11%, the biggest drop since 1709, when extreme cold severely disrupted agriculture across Europe in an event known here as the big freeze. It was so cold then that the Mediterranean port of Marseille froze.
The usual suspects, Napoleon, the Kaiser, Hitler, did not affect British economic output as strongly as Covid-19. And Britain has been hit harder than other advanced economies.
But the OBR warned that it could get worse again if the Brexit transition period ends without a deal. He predicted that a quarter of a million more people would lose their jobs next year, as an expected economic rebound of 5% from the Covid crisis was reduced to 3% by no deal.
(Remember, Ireland’s budget, released in October, was based on an economic forecast that assumed there would be no trade deal with the UK and the vaccines would not work or be ready in time. Planned for the worst, hoped the best The UK’s spending plan is based on opposing assumptions: reaching a deal with the EU and rolling out vaccines in the first half of the year).
Customs chaos on an unprepared British border would cost £ 16bn in the first three months of the new year, according to the OBR, though it sees customs problems easing as the year progresses.
Britain’s unguarded border would lose money to fraud and / or VAT and Customs breaches – around £ 750m in the first year, he thinks.
Even with a deal, the tax regulator believes that the British economy will be smaller and poorer than if it had stayed in the EU. Without a trade deal, it will be even poorer.
In today’s money, it would be around £ 120bn less. And the loss of tax revenue from that will add to an already bleak outlook for tax increases and spending cuts needed to keep British debt levels manageable for years to come.
And to a large extent, the Governor of the Bank of England told MPs this week that failing to reach a trade deal with the EU will have a worse long-term effect on the British economy than Covid-19. One remembers the Word of the year 2012: Omnishambles.
Perhaps then it is not surprising that Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak, chose to follow the trend seen this year by Word of the Year researchers.
His speech, in which he outlined his spending plans, never mentioned the word Brexit.
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