Brexit washes away British economy growth

Britain’s economy slowed last year to its weakest growth rate since the global financial crisis as mounting uncertainty over Brexit weighed on businesses and kept a lid on their investments, official figures showed Monday. The Office for National Statistics said that the British economy grew by a quarterly rate of only 0.2 percent during the fourth quarter, down from the 0.6 percent tick recorded in the previous three-month period. Output actually fell in the month of December, by 0.4 percent from November, though monthly data are known to be volatile.

For 2018 as a whole, the economy grew by 1.4 percent, its lowest rate since 2009, when it contracted by 4.2 percent in the wake of the global financial crisis that had brought much of the world’s banking system to its knees. Britain’s economy was likely hurt by global trends, such as trade tensions between the U.S. and China that have weighed on world growth. And many trading partners in Europe, such as Germany and Italy, have suffered a slowdown.

But there is plenty of evidence that uncertainty around to the country’s departure from the European Union was the main factor weighing on the economy, particularly on business investment. In the fourth quarter, business investment fell by 1.4 percent for the fourth straight quarterly decline — the first time that has happened since the financial crisis. The statistics agency’s head of GDP figures, Rob Kent-Smith, said the slowdown in the last three months of the year was particularly “steep” in car manufacturing and steel production, offset by continued growth in the services sector, which makes up around 80 percent of the British economy.

Thanks to Brexit, the U.K. economy is at its weakest since the global financial crisis, MarketWatch, Feb 14