From the Center for European Reform, this is the CER podcast.

Hello and welcome to another episode of the CER podcast.

My name is Sophia Beshe. I'm a research fellow here at the Center for European Reform.

And today I'm in conversation with John Springford the CES deputy director. Hi John.

Hello. So John and I are here to talk about the cause of Brexit for the British

economy. In the run-up to the referendum on leaving the EU, Brexit supporters were very

upset about what they called project fear, the warnings of economists and the broader

Remain camp that the British economy would be worse of if Britain left.

Now, two years after the referendum, the UK is already starting to see the effects of the vote.

John, what's the cost of Brexit so far?

Well, according to our estimate, it's 2.1%.

The economy would be 2.1% bigger had we not voted to leave the EU.

And that translates into a bit of a hit to the public finances.

Currently, probably around 20 billion or around 400 million a week.

Right. Let's talk about that.

John, in a really impactful recent paper,

has done the modeling to calculate the true cost of Brexit so far.

What was your motivation, motivation done for this analysis?

What were you trying to achieve?

Well, the first thing to do is to admit my intellectual forbear,

forbears, which were a group of economists led by Benjamine Bourne,

who's a German economist, who basically did the study that I did, and I have

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