Sharp decline in UK economy after Brexit may spur nationalist sentiment

 
Aug. 14, 2020 - PRLog -- British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is seriously concerned about the prospect of a rise in nationalist sentiment in Scotland and Northern Ireland after Brexit, says the New York Times.

According to the article, on August 7, the prime minister sent Treasury chief, Rishi Sunak, to Scotland. His visit was aimed at reducing the degree of tension in this part of the country, where nationalist sentiment has recently surged. According to an average of recent polls, today 52.5 percent of Scots support the idea of leaving the UK. This is quite a significant change compared to the results of the 2014 referendum, when 44.7 percent of citizens voted for independence. The article also recalls that during another referendum – on Brexit, which took place in 2016, the overwhelming majority of Scots voted to remain in the European Union.

During his visit, Rishi Sunak, who is coordinating the British government's economic rescue effort in response to the coronavirus, visited a number of businesses and reported to the Media that about 65,000 Scottish firms received 2 billion pounds, or 2.6 billion US dollars, in loans to survive the crisis. At the same time, he brushed aside questions about independence, saying that he did not think that it was the time to be talking about it.

Another senior official, Minister for Special Assignments, Michael Gove, went to Northern Ireland with nearly 500 million dollars in aid to help frustrated companies deal with new checks on shipped goods. Businesspeople there, including those loyal to London, worry they will be hurt by a costly, bureaucratic trading system between Northern Ireland and the rest of the union.

According to the experts of Centre for Economic Performance, London School of Economics and Political Science, the UK's exit from the European Union will put additional strain on the country's economy, many areas of which have been seriously affected during the COVID-19 pandemic. So, the July report of the organization says that the simultaneous negative impact of Brexit and the consequences of the fight against the new coronavirus will be felt from the autumn this year.

At the same time, according to the Office for National Statistics, in the second quarter of 2020 the UK economy contracted by 20.4 persent compared to the previous three months and by 21.7 percent in annual terms. In January–March, British GDP lost 2.2% QoQ and 1.7% YoY. Thus, the country's economy plunged into a technical recession, which was last recorded in the United Kingdom in 2009.

Source: https://penzanews.ru/en/analysis/66788-2020
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