Brexit 10 years on: UK economy and politics in a chart

On June 23, 2016, Britons went to the polls to vote on whether to remain in the European Union.

Shocking results were revealed overnight. Voters voted 52% to 48% to leave the EU. The pound plummeted. London’s FTSE 100 index fell. Prime Minister David Cameron, who called for a referendum and led the Remain campaign, has resigned.

Since then, Britain has negotiated a deal after failing to pass the proposal three times before Cameron’s successor, Prime Minister Theresa May, resigned. Brexit was finally achieved by Prime Minister Boris Johnson in 2020.

The Brexit campaign promised to “take back control” of immigration, free up more money for the country’s health service and strike trade deals with the rest of the world.

Ten years on, Brexit still casts a shadow over British life. This graph shows how the economic and political situation in the UK has evolved since then.

Britain’s economy has largely failed to recover post-Brexit after its relationship with its biggest trading partner was upended.

Shocks such as the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 hurt global growth, while Stanford University professor Nicholas Bloom estimates that Brexit could have reduced Britain’s GDP by 6% to 8% by 2025.

He said the negative impact “reflects increased uncertainty, reduced demand, wasted administrative time and increased misallocation of resources due to the protracted Brexit process.”

The Vote Leave campaign promised to take back control of Britain’s immigration policy, but leaving the EU has had unintended consequences. The UK currently has net immigration from EU countries, but immigration from non-EU countries has surged due to labor shortages, an increase in international students and an emergency visa system extended to countries such as Ukraine.

Meanwhile, fewer Europeans are moving to the UK, and net immigration from the UK is reversing.

“Net EU migration subsequently turned negative in 2022, as the post-Brexit immigration system significantly reduced opportunities for EU nationals to migrate to the UK,” the immigration watchdog said at a briefing in May.

“Since leaving the EU, work visa availability among EU nationals has been relatively low.”

One of the clearest indicators of the impact of Brexit is the value of the pound, which collapsed after the vote and has yet to recover its pre-referendum highs against both the euro and the dollar. The pound typically trades at around 10% lower than its June 2016 price, Convera said.

The average pound-to-euro price since the referendum has been 1.16 euros, down from 1.27 euros in the previous decade, and 98% of transactions since the Brexit vote have been in sterling at less than 1.20 euros, Convera said.

This made overseas goods and assets suddenly more expensive for British people, impacting the cost of living as the UK is a major importer of food, energy and materials.

The disparity in performance between the large-cap multinational FTSE 100 and the domestically focused FTSE 250 is also overshadowing London’s capital markets.

“Behind the scenes, the UK stock market still bears the scars of decisions that have weighed on both companies and investor confidence,” Chris Smith, Jupiter’s UK growth equity investment manager, told CNBC.

“The FTSE 100 has significantly outperformed the more domestically oriented FTSE 250 due to its global earnings exposure and favorable sector mix. A weaker pound, currency-driven inflation and higher costs of capital have all contributed to a more difficult backdrop for UK-focused companies,” he added.

Neither index has kept pace with the spectacular gains experienced by the U.S. stock market, which has enjoyed a long bull market fueled by technology and AI stocks.

“The UK stock market is very much the same as it was 10 years ago,” said Mark Preskett, portfolio manager at Morningstar. “The FTSE powerhouse stocks of 10 years ago are still our most successful companies.”

“When you compare this to the U.S. market, you see a more dynamic list of companies and an index that is seeing real change.”

The EU remains the UK’s largest trading partner, with imports and exports valued at more than €800 billion.

In 2025, the EU accounted for 41% of UK exports and 50% of UK imports.

A new trade agreement between the two countries was signed on January 1, 2021, and neither side can introduce tariffs or quotas.

When Cameron resigned the morning after the Brexit vote, he had been prime minister for six years. His predecessor, Gordon Brown, served for three years. Brown was preceded by Tony Blair, who served as prime minister for 10 years.

Since the referendum, no prime minister has ever served for more than three years, and there have been instances where a prime minister has served for just 49 days.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer sought to rebuild relations with Europe but resigned on Monday as he faced a leadership challenge from rival Andy Burnham, paving the way for the country’s seventh prime minister in a decade.

—CNBC’s Bryn Bache also contributed to this report.