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After Brexit, what about Engxit, or even Londonxit?

6/7/2016

 

Now that Brexit is looking like a reality, why stop there? Can we say anything sensible about the merits of seeking even further devolution? What about an English exit from the United Kingdom. One (slightly) tongue in cheek article I read even suggested that Londonxit should also be considered given the difference between how people in London voted in the Referendum, and how the rest of the country voted.

So here is a tongue in cheek analysis of this suggestion.

GVA, or Gross Value Added, is a measure of the value of the goods and services added to the economy. The ONS publishes figures for GVA split by region in the UK and the results are interesting:

Country GVA per capita
England 25,367
Wales 17,573
Scotland 23,102
Northern Ireland 18,682

​So the first point to note is that the average person in England is contributing more to the economy as measured by GVA than the average person in Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland, with Scotland being a close second. In graph form the results looks like this:
​
Picture

One obvious candidate for why England is more efficient might be that England has higher levels of government investment. The ONS publishes figures on this as well and we can see that in fact the opposite is true:
​
Country Public Spending per capita
England 8,638
Wales 9,904
Scotland 10,374
Northern Ireland 11,106

England in fact has the lowest level of public spending. 
Picture

So not only does England have the highest GVA, it is doing so with the lowest public spending per capita! It seems that England is being dragged down with it's fellow UK members.

Lets not stop there though,.we can also look at GVA figures on a regional level.

​
County GVA
North East 18,216
Yorkshire and the Humber 19,863
West Midlands 20,086
East of England 20,524
North West 21,011
South West 22,324
East Midlands 23,063
South East 27,012
London 42,666
Picture

So we see that London is far ahead of the other regions in the UK when measured by GVA. If we once again add in public spending, (which according to the perception created by most media is heavily favoured towards London) we get the following chart:
​
Picture

It turns out that public spending is actually pretty level through out England. Therefore on the face of it perhaps it's time for Londonxit after all?

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    ​​I work as an actuary and underwriter at a global reinsurer in London.

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