Economic Growth Post Brexit

John Mills’ latest book has an uplifting message. Liam Halligan has welcomed the book, because, as he says, “John Mills is that rare beast – an economist with deep experience of both politics and business. That’s why his upbeat analysis is not just welcome, but credible too.” From a different perspective, Bryan Gould has commented about this book in similar terms:: “John Mills shows how to rebuild our economy after the mistakes of the past.” The message of this book is that we could get the UK economy to grow much faster and more sustainably than it has done recently. Over the last dozen years the UK growth rate has been 1.4% per annum, which is 60% below the 3.5% world average. We could do very much better than this because our poor performance has not been caused by inevitable forces. It is the result of policy mistakes which could – and should – have been avoided.During the first 25 years after the war, the average growth rate among western economies was close to 4%. Between 1975 and 2000, this dropped to about 3%. Since 2000 it has been barely 1.5%.2 The UK is not, therefore unique in seeing its performance decline, but it is a relatively extreme case.John Mills sets out clearly what he believes has to be done in order for the UK to achieve its potential – and in his robust and challenging approach gives food for thought to all interested in the economic well-being and growth of the UK.