For immediate release
10 years since the Brexit vote – what actually happened?
Ten years ago today, the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union. The Leave campaign promised lower prices, more money for the NHS, and exciting new trade deals around the world. A decade on, it is fair to ask: what actually happened?
The honest answer, backed by economists and by businesses here in Wrexham, is that Brexit has cost our country dearly, and ordinary families, local firms, and young people are still paying the price.
In 2025, economists from the Bank of England, Stanford University and King’s College London completed one of the most thorough studies of Brexit’s impact ever carried out. Their finding was stark: Britain’s economy is between 6% and 8% smaller than it would have been had we stayed in the EU. That is not a future warning, it is damage already done. Business investment is down by up to 18%. The UK’s own independent spending watchdog confirmed that new trade deals with the rest of the world will not come close to replacing what we lost.
One of the most direct ways Brexit has hit people in Wrexham is at the supermarket. The EU is our closest trading partner, and leaving the single market created new costs every time food crosses the Channel. Researchers found that within the first year of post-Brexit border rules alone, the average household was already paying around £210 more on food. By late 2025, UK food prices had risen by nearly 39% over five years, with post-Brexit trade barriers among the identified causes. The government is now negotiating a new agreement with the EU specifically to try to bring some of those food costs down.
Over the past two years I have spoken to businesses across the constituency, and the story is consistent: Brexit created a mountain of new paperwork, cost, and red tape, and the firms least able to absorb it were hit hardest.
Seed and horticultural businesses that supply customers across Europe now need special plant health certificates for every shipment. What was once as simple as a domestic delivery now involves documents costing hundreds of pounds, plus delays at the border. Advanced manufacturers, a vital part of Wrexham’s economy, have had to change suppliers or absorb extra costs to meet new rules of origin requirements. And small businesses that simply wanted to sell their products in France or Germany have found themselves buried in customs declarations, health certificates and foreign VAT registration.
Perhaps the greatest injustice of Brexit is what it took from young people. Those aged 18 to 25 voted overwhelmingly to Remain, they saw Europe as opportunity. The right to live, work and study freely across 27 countries is gone. A young person from Wrexham wanting to work in Barcelona or study in Amsterdam now needs a visa and, often, a job offer before they can even apply.
Our universities are feeling it too. EU students once paid home fees and were a core part of university income. After Brexit reclassified them as international students, enrolments fell by 58%, nearly 90,000 fewer European students in UK higher education. Combined with tighter visa rules for students from further afield, universities across the country are now cutting courses and making staff redundant.
I am not writing this to re-run the referendum. But honesty about what has happened is the only starting point for putting things right. The current government is working to reset our relationship with the EU, reducing unnecessary trade barriers and restoring some of what was lost. That is welcome. But we need to go further and faster: a proper agri-food deal to cut costs for producers and shoppers, real support for small businesses that bore the heaviest Brexit burden, and a youth mobility scheme so young people in Wrexham have the same opportunities as their European peers.
The EU is on our doorstep. It is our biggest market. The closer and more cooperative our relationship with it, the better for Wrexham, for Wales, and for the whole country.
ENDS
