Britain's economy has been damaged by Brexit. But what should ministers do about it?

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

65% : Most economists agree that closer relations with the EU could boost growth.
61% : UK exports of goods and services to the EU were worth £358bn (41% of the global total) last year.
60% : The Liberal Democrats claim that a "bespoke" UK-EU customs union could deliver a 2.2% boost to the economy, and bring in £25bn a year for the exchequer.
54% : The figure is sourced from research by the consultancy Frontier Economics commissioned by Best for Britain, which campaigns for closer EU ties.
54% : However, the UK in a Changing Europe thinktank warns the findings are modelled on "deep UK-EU regulatory alignment in goods and services" - something that would extend beyond the arrangements of any customs union.
53% : Under a customs union Britain would apply the same tariffs on imports as the EU.
51% : The idea of a customs union has gained traction, but agreeing a deal would be far from straightforward Almost a decade on from the Brexit vote, the verdict is clear.
51% : In the UK-EU "reset" earlier this year, both sides took a major step towards negotiating these deals.
50% : At the weekend Wes Streeting became the latest frontbench Labour politician to call for a deeper trading relationship with the EU.
50% : However, access is limited by other rules and restrictions - and falls significantly short of the UK's previous membership of the EU single market and customs union.
50% : However, for some sectors, loss of access to the single market has had a big impact: particularly in the City of London, where financial services exports have lost significant market share in the EU.
50% : Instead, the party promised to "work to improve the UK's trade and investment relationship with the EU, by tearing down unnecessary barriers to trade" - including a veterinary agreement to ease food trade, a deal to help touring artists, and an agreement on the mutual recognition of professional qualifications.
49% : Volumes collapsed immediately after the end of the Brexit transition period in January 2021, and remain short of 2019 levels in real terms.
49% : That is much smaller than the economic cost of Brexit, estimated at 4% of GDP by the Office for Budget Responsibility.
48% : His remarks were interpreted as a suggestion that Britain could join a customs union with the EU - something that Keir Starmer has ruled out.
48% : That would open the door to lengthy negotiations about what exactly a UK-EU customs union would look like.
47% : Under the trade and cooperation agreement negotiated by Boris Johnson's government, Britain has tariff-free trade with the EU.
47% : Under such an arrangement, the UK would escape some of the bureaucracy introduced by Brexit - including complex "rules of origin" requirements for exporters to access tariff-free trade, which estimates show add 2-8% to firms' costs.
45% : While this coincided with the Covid pandemic - making it harder to untangle the Brexit impact - economists have shown the UK clearly suffered a weaker period for its trade in goods than for other G7 countries, and that activity would have been considerably stronger under a remain scenario.
45% : Experts say the EU would drive a hard bargain, and that conditions for varying levels of access would be applied - with freedom of movement and budget contributions among potential demands.
44% : Services exports to both the EU and non-EU countries also fell in 2020, but have recovered more strongly since.
39% : This would mean the UK would be unable to offer more favourable deals to other countries - putting at risk post-Brexit agreements.

*Our bias meter rating uses data science including sentiment analysis, machine learning and our proprietary algorithm for determining biases in news articles. Bias scores are on a scale of -100% to 100% with higher negative scores being more liberal and higher positive scores being more conservative, and 0% being neutral. The rating is an independent analysis and is not affiliated nor sponsored by the news source or any other organization.