Anyone wishing to brush the effects of Brexit under the carpet, whistle and pretend there is nothing going on with that - and there are plenty of them - should take a look at the Office for Budget Responsibility’s latest analysis.

Those responsible for Brexit should, as anyone who follows the economy even in passing surely knows, be eating humble pie.

Instead, they continue to dine out on tall tales of how great their folly has been for the UK and, while the penny has been dropping for many people, large numbers are still taken in by the blind ideology.

The OBR, for anyone who does not know, is an independent body. It was set up by a former Conservative chancellor, George Osborne, in 2010.

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Many might remember senior OBR officials going to Downing Street after that infamous mini-Budget from Kwasi Kwarteng in autumn last year, during Liz Truss’s brief spell as prime minister.

Amid the propaganda storm, the OBR has been unwavering in its estimation of the overall effect of Brexit on the UK economy and trade.

Some people’s memories may be short. And the Brexiters seem so absolutely desperate to move on that shouting down anyone who offers the facts has become commonplace.

However, that does not take away any of the cold realities.

And the Brexiters’ at times furious impatience to move on does not change the fact that these grim effects of exiting the European Union and single market, which are proving as was inevitable to be such a major drag on the UK, will continue in the years to come.

The OBR’s latest economic and fiscal outlook, published last week to coincide with Chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s Autumn Statement, makes a key observation about the impact of Brexit on immigration from EU countries.

It says: “EU net migration has turned negative under the new post-Brexit immigration regime and stood at minus 50,000 in 2022.”

This may, of course, delight some Leavers, given the anti-immigration stance of many of them.

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However, anyone celebrating this sorry statistic should have a word with companies the length and breadth of the UK, in a vast array of sectors, laid low by skills and labour shortages.

And they should think about what it means for overall economic growth, and ultimately living standards.

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The OBR also highlights the impact of Brexit on UK trade.

It says: “We expect trade volumes to stagnate in the medium term as weak economic growth weighs on the domestic economy and on the UK’s major export markets. Recent trade outturns have been volatile but remain consistent with our assumptions on the impact of Brexit. We continue to expect that exiting the EU will reduce the UK’s trade intensity - exports plus imports as a share of GDP - by 15% in the long term.

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“As of 2023, UK trade intensity remains 1.7% below its 2019 level, versus an average increase of 1.9% across other G7 economies.”

The OBR adds: “The relative weakness in UK trade since the pandemic is explained entirely by goods trade, as UK services trade has grown at a similar rate to other G7 countries. This may suggest that Brexit frictions and post-pandemic disruptions have weighed more on trade in goods than on services. From 2024 to 2027, we expect real exports to average growth of just 0.1% a year, down from 0.5 [%] in [the] March [forecast]. We expect real imports to decline by 0.4% a year on average from 2024 to 2027, though this is up from 0.8 [%] in March.”

But what about all that noise around the shiny new trade deals negotiated by the UK Government?

The Brexiters do talk rather a lot about these.

Leavers would probably not have heard of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, the distant Indo-Pacific trade alliance, until the Conservative Government decided the UK should join it. Now they seem quite excited about it.

The OBR says in its latest outlook: “In March 2023, the UK joined the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), becoming the first new member since the trade bloc was established in 2018 and the first European member.

“However, there is not yet enough policy detail for us to estimate the impacts that this deal may have on our forecast at this time. The Government has estimated the deal could lead to ‘an increase in UK GDP of £1.8 billion in the long run’. If we take the long run to be 15 years after joining, this equates to around 0.04% of GDP.”

So certainly nothing to write home about.

And what of the Australia and New Zealand deals?

The OBR says: “The UK-Australia and UK-New Zealand trade deals, signed on 16 December 2021 and 28 February 2022 respectively, removed tariffs on all UK goods exported to Australia and New Zealand, and nearly all Australian and New Zealand exports to the UK, subject to meeting ‘rules of origin’ requirements.

“These came into force on 31 May 2023 and are expected to lower customs duties by around £45 million a year over the forecast. The Government’s analysis suggests the two deals might increase the level of real GDP by a combined 0.1% by…2035.”

You cannot really imagine this is what the Brexiters, who have seemed so bowled over by the new trade deals, want to hear.

The UK Government’s estimated benefits from the new trade deals on which it has spent so much time, and over which it has made so much noise, are tiny. For anyone who disputes that, they can be put into perspective in various ways.

Back in the spring, OBR chairman Richard Hughes summed up Brexit’s effect as follows: “We think that in the long run it reduces our overall output by around 4% compared with had we remained in the EU.”

People can do the arithmetic for themselves.

Mr Hunt mentioned Brexit just once in his speech last week, when he declared: “As well as confirming our Brexit Pubs Guarantee, which means duty on a pint is always lower than in the shops, I have decided to freeze all alcohol duty until August 1 next year.”

It is surely no wonder that he left it at that.