Nine years after the Brexit vote
Dan Hannan's prediction versus reality
Two days before the Brexit referendum which happened on 23 June 2016, then Conservative MEP Dan Hannan wrote an article (archived here) about what Britain would be like on 24 June 2025, after Brexit.
Today that day is upon us, so we can compare Hannan's predictions with reality. It's seriously delusional, so here I quote all of it, with annotations.
Dan Hannan's Brexit prediction, annotated
with annotations
It’s 24 June, 2025, and Britain is marking its annual Independence Day celebration. As the fireworks stream through the summer sky, still not quite dark, we wonder why it took us so long to leave. The years that followed the 2016 referendum didn’t just reinvigorate our economy, our democracy and our liberty. They improved relations with our neighbours.
In reality: There is no annual celebration of "Independence" from the EU.
Most voters want to rejoin, in fact in every opinion poll in 2025 and 2024, most have wanted to rejoin. In every poll except one in 2023, most voters wanted to rejoin. It is therefore the settled will of the British people to rejoin, even though all Britain's main political parties are against it.
The United Kingdom is now the region’s foremost knowledge-based economy. We lead the world in biotech, law, education, the audio-visual sector, financial services and software. New industries, from 3D printing to driverless cars, have sprung up around the country.
In reality: There is no driverless car industry. There are 3D printer manufacturers, such as Tri-Tech 3D, but it's a niche product.
Older industries, too, have revived as energy prices have fallen back to global levels: steel, cement, paper, plastics and ceramics producers have become competitive again.
In reality: Electricity and gas pricers are some of the highest in Europe.
The EU, meanwhile, continues to turn inwards, clinging to its dream of political amalgamation
In reality: because of external threats, from Putin and Trump, including the conininug russia invasion of Ukraine, and Trump's threat to invade three countries, two ofv which are in NATO, the EU has become muchg more united, has a much larger militatry dimension and plans to spend EUR 800 billion on modernising its military.
as the euro and migration crises worsen.
In reality: There is not Euro crisis. there is a migration crisis, in both UK and EU, which Brexit did nothing to lessen.
Its population is ageing, its share of world GDP shrinking and its peoples protesting.
In reality: Both the UK and EU have aging populations and shrinking shares of world GDP. And people everywhere protest.
“We have the most comprehensive workers’ rights in the world”, complains Jean-Claude Juncker, who has recently begun in his second term as President of the European Federation, “but we have fewer and fewer workers”.
The last thing most EU leaders wanted, once the shock had worn off, was a protracted argument with the United Kingdom which, on the day it left, became their single biggest market. Terms were agreed easily enough. Britain withdrew from the EU’s political structures and institutions, but kept its tariff-free arrangements in place. The rights of EU nationals living in the UK were confirmed,
In reality: a lot of them had to leave, as did many UK nationals living in EU.
and various reciprocal deals on healthcare and the like remained. For the sake of administrative convenience, Brexit took effect formally on 1 July 2019, to coincide with the mandates of a new European Parliament and Commission.
In reality: Brexit happened on 31 January 2020. The UK government had to get two extension from the EU because Britain couldn't decide what sort of Brexit they wanted.
That day marked, not a sudden departure, but the beginning of a gradual reorientation. As the leader of the Remain campaign, Lord Rose, had put it during the referendum campaign, “It’s not going to be a step change, it’s going to be a gentle process.” He was spot on.
In many areas, whether because of economies of scale or because rules were largely set at global level, the UK and the EU continued to adopt the same technical standards. But, from 2019, Britain could begin to disapply those regulations where the cost of compliance outweighed any benefits.
The EU’s Clinical Trials Directive, for example, had wiped out a great deal of medical research in Britain. Outside it, we again lead the world.
In reality: Leaving the EU also made pan-European research collaboration harder, especially due to early uncertainty over Horizon Europe participation. (The UK only rejoined Horizon in 2024.) The UK is not clearly “leading the world” — it's competitive, but the US still dominates in biotech funding and trials.
Opting out of the EU’s data protection rules has turned Hoxton into the software capital of the world. Britain is no longer hampered by Brussels restrictions on sales, promotions and e-commerce.
In reality: This is false on multiple levels. The UK has not fully opted out of the EU’s GDPR regime: it retained most of its provisions post-Brexit via the UK GDPR. The UK government has explored diverging from GDPR to encourage innovation (e.g. the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill), but it has not implemented a radical departure as of 2025.
Moreover, diverging too far from GDPR would risk the EU revoking its data adequacy decision, which would make EU–UK data transfers much more difficult. So the UK has remained close to EU data rules.
And Hoxton (London's tech hub) is not "software capital of the world". London is a leading European tech city, but Silicon Valley, Seattle, Bangalore, and Shenzgen are bigger.
Other EU regulations, often little known, had caused enormous damage. The REACH Directive, limiting the import of chemical products, had imposed huge costs on manufacturers.
In reality: The REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals) regulation was indeed costly for some businesses, due to the testing and registration requirements. However, post-Brexit, UK companies now face dual compliance: they need to register chemicals under both UK REACH and EU REACH if they want to export to the EU. So UK chemical manufacturers now deal with duplicated bureaucracy, i.e. Brexit has made things worse!
The bans on vitamin supplements and herbal remedies had closed down many health shops.
In reality: This is a mischaracterisation. The EU did regulate health claims and maximum doses in supplements under directives like the Food Supplements Directive and the Traditional Herbal Medicinal Products Directive, but it did not ban supplements outright.
While some products were affected (e.g. those with high doses or unproven claims), many remained on the market. The UK has not dramatically deregulated in this area post-Brexit — it continues to have a regulated supplements market, broadly in line with international norms.
There is no evidence for a wave of health shop closures caused by EU rules, nor a post-Brexit revival based on deregulation.
London’s art market had been brutalised by EU rules on VAT and retrospective taxation. All these sectors have revived.
In reality: There were EU rules such as the Artist's Resale Right (ARR) and VAT on art imports that some dealers disliked, and it’s true London lobbied for looser regulations. However, post-Brexit, London still applies ARR (as it was enshrined in UK law), and VAT issues remain complex.
While there were hopes that Brexit would boost London’s global art market standing, recent data shows mixed results: New York and Hong Kong remain dominant, and Brexit introduced new friction for EU sales and logistics. A small bump in auction activity has occurred, but not a “revival” at the level Hannan predicted.
Verdict: There was some basis for complaint, but no clear evidence of a post-Brexit boom in London’s art trade.
Financial services are booming – not only in London, but in Birmingham, Leeds and Edinburgh too.
In reality: The UK’s financial services sector remains globally significant, but “booming” is not an accurate generalisation. London has lost EU-related trading rights, in areas like equities and derivatives clearing. Cities like Birmingham, Leeds, and Edinburgh have seen some growth in financial services, but there’s little evidence to suggest a post-Brexit boom specifically due to EU departure. In short: resilient, yes; booming, not broadly true.
Eurocrats had never much liked the City, which they regarded as parasitical. Before Brexit, they targeted London with regulations that were not simply harmful but, in some cases, downright malicious: the Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive, the ban on short selling, the Financial Transactions Tax, the restrictions on insurance.
In reality: This is more a political opinion than a factual assertion. The EU did introduce financial regulations that affected London-based firms, but the idea that these were "malicious" is subjective. The Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive (AIFMD), for instance, was designed to increase transparency and oversight — whether it was disproportionately targeted at London depends on one's viewpoint, but it's not objectively “malicious.”
After Britain left, the EU’s regulations became even more heavy-handed, driving more exiles from Paris, Frankfurt and Milan. No other European city could hope to compete: their high rates of personal and corporate taxation, restrictive employment practices and lack of support services left London unchallenged.
In reality: This didn’t happen on a large scale. In fact, the opposite occurred in some respects: several financial institutions relocated parts of their operations to EU cities (Dublin, Frankfurt, Paris, Amsterdam) to retain access to the EU market. Jobs and trading volume in areas like euro-denominated swaps and share trading moved out of London, not into it. There’s no major trend of bankers or firms fleeing EU cities for the UK post-Brexit.
Other cities, too, have boomed, not least Liverpool and Glasgow, which had found themselves on the wrong side of the country when the EEC’s Common External Tariff was phased in in the 1970s. In 2016, the viability of our commercial ports was threatened by the EU’s Ports Services Directive, one of many proposed rules that was being held back so as not to boost the Leave vote. Now, the UK has again become a centre for world shipping.
Shale oil and gas came on tap, almost providentially, just as the North Sea reserves were depleting, with most of the infrastructure already in place.
In reality: There is no shale oil production. (Incidentally, Scotland used to have a big shale oil industry but it was closed down in the 1960s as economically unviable).
Outside the EU, we have been able to augment this bonanza by buying cheap Chinese solar panels.
In reality: The EU did have tariffs (of up to 47%) on Chinese solar panels, but they were all liften in 2018.
In consequence, our fuel bills have tumbled,
In reality: Fuel bills have massively increased.
boosting productivity, increasing household incomes and stimulating the entire economy.
In reality: The UK economy is stagnant with little or no increase in real-term per capita GDP on the 2016 level.
(The biggest single reason for this is planning rules which restrict building; this has nothing to do with the EU.)
During the first 12 months after the vote, Britain confirmed with the various countries that have trade deals with the EU that the same deals would continue. It also used that time to agree much more liberal terms with those states which had run up against EU protectionism, including India, China and Australia. These new treaties came into effect shortly after independence. Britain, like the EFTA countries, now combines global free trade with full participation in EU markets. Our universities are flourishing, taking the world’s brightest students and, where appropriate, charging accordingly. Their revenues, in consequence, are rising, while they continue to collaborate with research centres in Europe and around the world.
The number of student visas granted each year is decided by MPs who, now that they no longer need to worry about unlimited EU migration, can afford to take a long-term view. Parliament sets the number of work permits, the number of refugee places and the terms of family reunification. A points-based immigration system invites the world’s top talent; and the consequent sense of having had to win a place competitively means that new settlers arrive with commensurate pride and patriotism.
Unsurprisingly, several other European countries have opted to copy Britain’s deal with the EU, based as it is upon a common market rather than a common government.
In reality: No-one has wanted to copy the UK's relationship with the EU.
Some of these countries were drawn from EFTA (Norway, Switzerland and Iceland are all bringing their arrangements into line with ours).
In reality: This hasn't happened.
Some came from further afield (Serbia, Turkey, Ukraine).
In reality: Nor has this happened.
Some followed us out of the EU (Denmark, Ireland, the Netherlands).
In reality: No-one else has left the EU. In fact, after Brexit, support for EU membership went up in the remaining members, Serbia, Turkey, Ukraine all still want to join it, and EU politicians such as Marie le Pen, who used to talk a lot about their country also leaving the EU, have shut up about the subject.
The United Kingdom now leads a 22-state bloc
In reality: Nope. UK isn't the leader of any bloc.
that forms a free trade area with the EU, but remains outside its political structures. For their part, the EU 24 have continued to push ahead with economic, military and political amalgamation.
In reality: This is true for military policy. I guess Dan got something right after all.
They now have a common police force and army, a pan-European income tax and a harmonised system of social security.
In reality: None of this has happened.
These developments have prompted referendums in three other EU states on whether to copy Britain.
In reality: There have been no such referendums.
Perhaps the greatest benefit, though, is not easy to quantify. Britain has recovered its self-belief.
In reality: While it is true this isn't easy to quantify, I'd argue the exact opposite. Support for leaving the UK is at record high levels in Scotland, in Northern ireland, and in Wales. Most voters seem to think that neitherr the present Labour government nor the previous Conservative one are capable of solving Britain's problems.
As we left the EU, we straightened our backs, looked about us, and realised that we were still a nation to be reckoned with: the world’s fifth economy and fourth military power, one of five members on the UN Security Council and a leading member of the G7 and the Commonwealth. We recalled, too, that we were the world’s leading exporter of soft power; that our language was the most widely studied on Earth; that we were linked by kinship and migration to every continent and archipelago.
In reality: it's absolutely true that Britain has big cultural links with the rest of the world, but the UK government seems incapable of doing anything useful with them.
We saw that there were great opportunities across the oceans, beyond the enervated eurozone. We knew that our song had not yet been sung.
In reality: The mood is of continued British decline.
Summary
Brexit has not been a shining success. Don't take my word for it, ask the British people.
In the most recent poll, from June 2025, 61% say Brexit has been a failure and only 13% say it's been a success.
Furthermore, 56% want to rejoin the EU and only 35% want to stay out.
Lest you think that's just one poll, consider that every poll from 2025 and 2024 puts rejoin ahead of stay out (source: wikipedia). In 2023 there was one poll that put stay out 1% ahead of rejoin, but only by 1%. Every other poll had rejoin ahead, usually by a margin much larger than 1%.
In Brexit the British ruling class got it wrong. Indeed they have done so in most major foreign policy decisions they've made over the last century.