Again the Brexit omertà kicks in as key report on economic decline ignored by BBC

It is not often that a think tank report emerges that it readable from the get-go. But the ponderously named National Institute for Economic and Social Research, a blue chip long standing worthy body chaired by Sir Philip Rutnam, a top civil servant, who was running the Home Office until Priti Patel arrived as Home Secretary and made his life so impossible to the point he was paid £300,000 to leave.

But the new report on Britain under the Tories and Liberal Democrats after 2010 and especially after Brexit is quite devastating. It is easy to read and well set out. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/mar/12/uk-drops-down-list-of-affluent-nations-after-decade-of-stagnation-niesr-finds

Following the ultra hard Brexit imposed by Boris Johnson in 2020 and so far unchallenged by the Labour government since last July Britain has become an under-

It shows “the stark reality of life in the United Kingdom in 2025. While some enjoy a standard of living comparable to the most prosperous regions of Europe, the poorest are struggling to afford the most basic necessities, like food and heating. The United Kingdom is not a high-wage nor a high-welfare country, leaving millions trapped between low wages and inadequate support.”

The report reveals that real value of UK wages, once higher than the OECD average, has fallen behind other developed countries. with estimates suggesting that UK workers would be significantly better off if productivity had continued to grow at pre-2008 rates.

The average British worker is about 20 per cent less productive than their French and German equivalents and 30 per cent less productive than US workers, the NIESR said. The cuts in proper apprenticeship for non-university school leavers which began in the 1980s is reducing UK skills levels.

The NIESR says that had the UK the same rise in productivity over the Tory Brexit years as the US that would make UK workers “more than £4,000 better off today”.

Other key points state:

- The poorest households in Slovenia and Malta are now better off than the poorest in the UK:whereas real incomes grew consistently before the 2008 financial crisis, the stagnation afterwards has meant that other countries have overtaken the UK standard of living.

- Regional income growth is some of the slowest in Europe: real incomes in the majority of European regions have grown at a faster rate than those in UK.

- The UK has some of the least generous welfare across the OECD: the UK ranks in the middle of OECD countries for welfare spending (as a per cent of GDP) and third lowest for welfare value (per cent of average wages).

- Only during the pandemic did welfare cover the costs of essentials due to the £20 per week uplift to Universal Credit.

According to the NIESR the UK is neither a high wage nor high welfare country: the consequence of weak wage growth and cuts in welfare spending have meant that by comparison to other countries these two main sources of living standards in the UK is limited.

Less than 5 per cent of private rental accommodation across the UK is affordable on housing benefit (down from 20 per cent in 2020): freezing the cash value of housing benefit while private rental costs grew at record rates has led to a substantial fall in the areas of the county affordable on housing benefit.

It might be assumed that a right-leaning Tory/LibDem government after 2010 with most LibDems ministers coming from the so-called Orange Book wing of the LibDems – those who supported a reduction in public spending, tax cuts for the wealthy, and a focus on the financial services sector instead of manufacturing - would hit the poorer half of the national workforce without higher education, much weaker unions than in the 20^th century, and facing competition for lower paid jobs from workers entering Britain from abroad.

Unlike most of Europe where systems of employer-employee works councils have some control over hiring policy or where ID cards stop undocumented immigrants workers from getting unskilled entry level jobs, the trade unions in Britain have always rejected works councils and the left, liberal and right in Britain have rejected modern ID cards systems so there is very little control on hiring.

The National Institute of Economic and Social Research produces of course non-partisan research serving the nation with accurate, timely, well-researched and well-written reports.

So far, there have been fair newspaper reports in papers like the Daily Telegraph and Guardian but the BBC and broadcast media have ignored this report. It is part of the British media omertà syndrome especially of the BBC on Brexit.

It is not clear why but the BBC still treats Brexit as a kind of political ping-pong between partisans and opponents of Brexit as if the BBC cannot escape from the its pre-referendum coverage of Europe when Today and Question Time were handed over to Nigel Farage and anti-Europeans from the main parties.

Today Brexit is a fait accompli. It is not going to be reversed. But its impact on British citizens is changing their life generally for the worse. The NIESR report provided yet more evidence. At some stage the BBC must accept its duty to report fairly on how cutting links with Europe has changed Britain and not for the better.