New figures reveal Brexit costing UK businesses £37bn a year

UK ministers have pledged to "tear down" barriers to trade with the European Union after new figures revealed that Brexit has cost UK businesses £37 billion a year.

The price of the UK’s departure was laid bare as the government said the UK’s total trade with the EU was 5 per cent lower than before we left the bloc, News.Az reports citing The Independent.

Trade minister Douglas Alexander hit out at the Brexit deal agreed by the previous Conservative government, saying it was “clear .. (it) is not working well enough.”

Labour is currently negotiating a “reset” of relations, in a deal Keir Starmer has said will repair the UK’s damaged relationship with the EU for the benefit of “generations to come”.

Mr Alexander said ministers would work with other countries “to improve the UK’s trade and investment relationship with the EU, tearing down unnecessary barriers to trade to help drive growth”.

He added that in the 12 months to the end of September last year the UK’s total trade with the EU was 5 per cent “below the level seen in 2018”, before the UK left the bloc, once inflation and precious metals were excluded.

Analysis by the House of Commons library estimates the 5 per cent drop to be worth £37bn.

Mr Alexander’s comments came in a parliamentary written answer to the SNP MP Stephen Gethins, who commissioned the analysis.

He said: “This is an appalling loss of trade at a time when business and the Exchequer can ill afford it.”

He added: “When the government is cutting budgets that will hit the poorest in the UK with benefits cuts - and the most vulnerable around the world with aid cuts - it is obscene that it continues to pursue an expensive and unnecessary hard Tory Brexit.

“The drop in trade makes us all poorer, including taking away resources from the Treasury. It also makes growth more difficult by hobbling business with red tape that is particularly detrimental to SMEs.

News.Az