As of the first quarter of 2025, the value of goods exported to the European Union from the United Kingdom was over 42.1 billion British pounds, compared with around 76.7 billion pounds of goods imported, resulting in a negative goods trade balance with the EU of around approximately 34.6 billion pounds.

Since the first quarter of 2016, the total trade deficit of the UK has widened, most notably in the first half of 2022. As of the second quarter of 202 the UK's trade balance reached 19 billion British pounds.

  UK’s EU and non-EU trade   UK runs a trade deficit with the EU, but this is not the case regarding trade with countries outside the European Union. Since 2012, the value of UK goods exported to non-EU countries has persistenly been greater than imports made from these countries, resulting in a healthy trade surplus.

  International UK trade after Brexit   Following the Brexit referendum of 2016,the UK government has sought to renew a number of trade agreements that come automatically with EU membership, such as Free Trade Agreements (FTA) and Economic Partnership Agreements (EPA).

In the second quarter of 2025, the value of exports from the United Kingdom amounted to approximately 227 billion British pounds, while imports to the country amounted to around 241 billion pounds, resulting in a trade deficit of around 14.4 billion pounds in this quarter. During this time period, the value of UK exports was highest in the fourth quarter of 2022, with the value of imports peaking in the third quarter of 2022. The UK's main trade partners Despite the UK leaving the EU in 2020 following the Brexit referendum of 2016, Europe remains the main destination for UK exports, with almost half of UK exports heading there in 2023. During the same year, just over 60 percent of imports came from European countries, compared with around 17.9 percent from countries in Asia, and 11.8 percent from the Americas. In terms of individual countries, the United States was the UK's leading export partner for both goods and services from the UK, while Germany was the main source of UK goods imports, and the U.S. for service imports. It is as yet unclear how the return of Donald Trump to the White House will impact UK/US trade relations, should the President follow through with threats made on the campaign trail to increase trade tariffs. Brexit rethink under Starmer? Although generally more pro-European than the previous government, the new Labour government, led by Keir Starmer, does not plan to rejoin the European Union, or the Single Market. Public opinion, while gradually turning against Brexit recently, has not coalesced around a particular trading relationship. In late 2023, a survey indicated that while 31 percent of British adults wanted to rejoin the EU, a further 30 percent wanted to simply improve relations with the EU, instead of rejoining. Just 11 percent of respondents wanted to join the single market but not the EU, while 10 percent were happy with the relationship as it was. At the start of 2025, after several months in office, the new government has not signalled any major change in direction regarding on this, but has broadly signalled it wants a better relationship with the EU.

This project uses interview data to investigate the implications, implementation and consequences of Brexit for UK universities, including the effects in relation to migration, international education and financial sustainability. The generic research questions are: 1) What are the perceived implications of Brexit for UK universities as leaders and others see it? 2) What are the principal responses of universities and what are their capabilities to monitor, judge, strategies, respond, initiate and make internal changes, in relation to Brexit? 3) How do these factors vary by UK nation; university mission, status, resources; and discipline? The dataset includes 124 semi-structured transcripts of semi-structured interviews conducted between November 2017 to September 2018. Participants were from 12 universities in the UK. This project is part of the ESRC’s 'The UK in a Changing Europe' initiative which supports research into the relationship between the UK and the European Union (EU).UK universities are extensively engaged in Europe, in collaborative research and infrastructure and through EU citizen staff and students. The UK’s departure from the EU has many potential consequences for UK universities and their staffing, research, international education and financial sustainability. Brexit is an unprecedented development with implications in almost every domain of UK higher education (HE) and a range of possible forms and consequences for individual UK HEIs, with marked potential for differential effects (e.g. in research capability, international students, staffing, mission, income) across the variation of HEI types. Though Brexit has many possible forms, in any form it is likely to disrupt existing projects, networks and activities, and could imply sharp reductions in staff, students and/or income, in some or all HEIs. It also calls for new and innovative lines of institutional and discipline-based development on and off shore.In an uncertain and fast changing setting characterised by multiple possibilities and sudden shocks, HEIs will be required to monitor, respond, adjust, strategize, reorient and initiate with unprecedented speed and effectiveness; to build new relations and activity portfolios in Europe and beyond; and to grapple with new challenges to human resource management, risk management, financial sustainability, mission, governance and local implementation systems. This research investigates the policy implications, implementation and consequences of Brexit for UK HE, in two priority areas identified by the Economic and Social Research Council: implications of Brexit for migration, and impacts in the economy and future trade arrangements. UK higher education institutions (HEIs) are extensively engaged in Europe and in this sector EU relations have been unambiguously positive and productive. While there is a range of possible Brexit scenarios, UK HE is closely affected by the Brexit-related policy settings for staff mobility, retention and recruitment ('migration'); for international student policy and regulation, with consequences for tuition revenues and balance sheets ('trade'); and by the effects of Brexit in research relations between UK and European HEIs. Research papers co-authored with colleagues in Europe outweigh total papers co-authored with US and other English-speaking countries, more than 20 per cent of UK R&D funding is from international sources with much from collaborative European research schemes. The role of UK universities in Europe is central to their outstanding global research performance: UK accounts for 3.2 per cent of global R&D spending, 9.5 per cent of scientific papers downloaded, 11.6 per cent of citations, and 15.9 per cent of the most highly-cited papers. EU frameworks enable many UK researchers to lead, while sharing the best ideas and people from other EU member countries. The research capacity and reputation of UK HEIs also underpins the nation's role as the world's second largest exporter of international education after the US. The government has stated that it hopes to raise education exports by almost 50 per cent to 30 billion pa in 2020. The main data collection consists of qualitative case studies in 12 UK HEIs, with participating institutions selected from all four nations and illustrating the diversity of the sector. There are 127 semi-structured interviews, with senior academic leaders of HEIs, chief financial officers, heads of human resources, executive deans in three disciplines (health, science, social science), research professors from these disciplines, and student representatives. The project also conducted policy-oriented seminars which will have both data gathering and dissemination/public discussion purposes. The practical outcomes of the research are (a) through research, public events and briefings, to draw to the attention of policy makers and public the implications of different Brexit scenarios in higher education, (b) within HE, to investigate and make recommendations on the capacity of UK HEIs to respond effectively to the challenges triggered by Brexit under the different possible Brexit scenarios, in the context also of other policy developments (Office for Students, TEF). Interviews were conducted between November 2017 to September 2018. Participants were from 12 universities in the UK. We have sampled universities based on the following criteria to include a variety of case study universities: (1) Nations: We aimed to include universities from the four nations of the UK and had eight case study universities in England, two in Scotland, one in Wales, and one in Northern Ireland. (2) Type of universities: We sampled universities to include those from different groupings and had four Russell Group universities, five other pre-1992 universities, and three post-1992 universities. Within each case study university, we aimed to interview participants with different level of responsibilities, including 44 senior executives (e.g. vice-chancellor), 23 senior administrators (e.g. director of finance), 10 members of governing body, 28 academic leaders (e.g. department head), 8 students, and 14 academics in Health Sciences, Sciences, Social Sciences.

The economic landscape of the United Kingdom has been significantly shaped by the intertwined issues of Brexit, COVID-19, and their interconnected impacts. Despite the country’s robust and diverse economy, the disruptions caused by Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic have created uncertainty and upheaval for both businesses and individuals. Recognizing the magnitude of these challenges, academic literature has directed its attention toward conducting immediate research in this crucial area. This study sets out to investigate key economic factors that have influenced various sectors of the UK economy and have broader economic implications within the context of Brexit and COVID-19. The factors under scrutiny include the unemployment rate, GDP index, earnings, and trade. To accomplish this, a range of data analysis tools and techniques were employed, including the Box-Jenkins method, neural network modeling, Google Trend analysis, and Twitter-sentiment analysis. The analysis encompassed different periods: pre-Brexit (2011-2016), Brexit (2016-2020), the COVID-19 period, and post-Brexit (2020-2021). The findings of the analysis offer intriguing insights spanning the past decade. For instance, the unemployment rate displayed a downward trend until 2020 but experienced a spike in 2021, persisting for a six-month period. Meanwhile, total earnings per week exhibited a gradual increase over time, and the GDP index demonstrated an upward trajectory until 2020 but declined during the COVID-19 period. Notably, trade experienced the most significant decline following both Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, the impact of these events exhibited variations across the UK’s four regions and twelve industries. Wales and Northern Ireland emerged as the regions most affected by Brexit and COVID-19, with industries such as accommodation, construction, and wholesale trade particularly impacted in terms of earnings and employment levels. Conversely, industries such as finance, science, and health demonstrated an increased contribution to the UK’s total GDP in the post-Brexit period, indicating some positive outcomes. It is worth highlighting that the impact of these economic factors was more pronounced on men than on women. Among all the variables analyzed, trade suffered the most severe consequences in the UK. By early 2021, the macroeconomic situation in the country was characterized by a simple dynamic: economic demand rebounded at a faster pace than supply, leading to shortages, bottlenecks, and inflation. The findings of this research carry significant value for the UK government and businesses, empowering them to adapt and innovate based on forecasts to navigate the challenges posed by Brexit and COVID-19. By doing so, they can promote long-term economic growth and effectively address the disruptions caused by these interrelated issues.

As of January 31, 2020, the United Kingdom (UK) is no longer a member of the European Union (EU). The UK left the EU without a trade deal, and has until the end of 2020 to determine the new framework of its trade relations with the EU. This means either a free trade agreement (FTA) will need to be struck between the two parties, or the UK will fall back on trading under the World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules. According to a study on the possible impact of these scenarios on GDP growth in the UK, after the transition period ends by the beginning of 2021, trading under WTO terms will lead to a decline of *** percent in UK GDP. Relative to this rate, if the UK trade with the EU under a FTA, the GDP is forecast to improve by * percent.

The leading food or drink product exported from the UK in 2023 was whiskey by far. The export value of whiskey reached *** billion British pounds that year. In comparison, milk, cream, and chocolate, the second and third most exported products, only reached about *** and *** million British pounds in export value, respectively. Scottish whisky Whisky has been distilled in Scotland for many years and is the origin of all Scotch whisky, so it is no surprise that whisky is a top export from the UK. The Scottish whisky brand, Johnnie Walker, sold **** million 9-liter cases of whisky in 2021. It is the ***** most sold whisky worldwide and it is among the top ten most popular spirit brands worldwide as well. UK trade within Europe Despite the impact of Brexit, the UK and the rest of Europe remain important trade partners to one another. After a sharp drop in exports in January 2021, exports of goods from the UK have begun to recover and even exceeded pre-Brexit levels. ************************************ are the leading destinations for food and drink exports from the UK as of 2021. Exports to Ireland reached ***** billion British pounds.

The European Union has experienced a shift in its biggest trade partners since the early 2000s. Over the past two decades, the share of EU imports flowing from China has more than doubled, from around 8 percent in 2002 to over 20 percent in 2024, making China the EU's largest external import partner. At the same time, the proportion of total imports coming from the United Kingdom, which was historically a large importer to EU countries (the UK was an EU member state until 2020), have more than halved, from 18 percent to less than 7 percent. This secular trend existed before the UK voted to leave the EU in 2016, however, there has been a notable drop in imports from the UK since Brexit was enacted in 2020. By contrast the share of the EU's import trade taken by the U.S., Switzerland, and the Rest of World have remained relatively stable over this period. The share of exports coming from Russia was growing steadily in the period before 2014, after which the EU imposed economic sanctions on Russia due to the illegal annexation of Crimea from Ukraine. Imports from Russia collapsed in 2023, due to the effect of the additional economic sanctions placed on Russia in response to the full scale invasion of Ukraine in February of 2022.The Russian Federation is now only the tenth-largest exporter to the EU, after India, Japan, and South Korea.

The economic landscape of the United Kingdom has been significantly shaped by the intertwined issues of Brexit, COVID-19, and their interconnected impacts. Despite the country’s robust and diverse economy, the disruptions caused by Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic have created uncertainty and upheaval for both businesses and individuals. Recognizing the magnitude of these challenges, academic literature has directed its attention toward conducting immediate research in this crucial area. This study sets out to investigate key economic factors that have influenced various sectors of the UK economy and have broader economic implications within the context of Brexit and COVID-19. The factors under scrutiny include the unemployment rate, GDP index, earnings, and trade. To accomplish this, a range of data analysis tools and techniques were employed, including the Box-Jenkins method, neural network modeling, Google Trend analysis, and Twitter-sentiment analysis. The analysis encompassed different periods: pre-Brexit (2011-2016), Brexit (2016-2020), the COVID-19 period, and post-Brexit (2020-2021). The findings of the analysis offer intriguing insights spanning the past decade. For instance, the unemployment rate displayed a downward trend until 2020 but experienced a spike in 2021, persisting for a six-month period. Meanwhile, total earnings per week exhibited a gradual increase over time, and the GDP index demonstrated an upward trajectory until 2020 but declined during the COVID-19 period. Notably, trade experienced the most significant decline following both Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, the impact of these events exhibited variations across the UK’s four regions and twelve industries. Wales and Northern Ireland emerged as the regions most affected by Brexit and COVID-19, with industries such as accommodation, construction, and wholesale trade particularly impacted in terms of earnings and employment levels. Conversely, industries such as finance, science, and health demonstrated an increased contribution to the UK’s total GDP in the post-Brexit period, indicating some positive outcomes. It is worth highlighting that the impact of these economic factors was more pronounced on men than on women. Among all the variables analyzed, trade suffered the most severe consequences in the UK. By early 2021, the macroeconomic situation in the country was characterized by a simple dynamic: economic demand rebounded at a faster pace than supply, leading to shortages, bottlenecks, and inflation. The findings of this research carry significant value for the UK government and businesses, empowering them to adapt and innovate based on forecasts to navigate the challenges posed by Brexit and COVID-19. By doing so, they can promote long-term economic growth and effectively address the disruptions caused by these interrelated issues.

Survey data on public attitudes towards Brexit in the United Kingdom from 2017-2020. 10-wave survey tracker data on how attitudes towards Brexit developed in the aftermath of the 2016 Brexit referendum, including questions on identification as "Leavers" and "Remainers", consequences of Brexit for the country and the individual, as well as the government's handling of Brexit. Respondents in each wave of the tracker are a nationally-representative sample of the British adult population. The 10 tracker surveys were conducted between 25 April 2017- 10 January 2020. The surveys were conducted by YouGov.In the referendum on 23 June 2016 voters gave the British government a mandate for Britain to be the first country to ever leave the EU. Yet, the options of 'leave' or 'remain' do not give clear guidance as to what kind of Brexit people want or will accept. At the heart of this research project is a question of huge importance to policy-makers: which negotiation outcomes will be considered legitimate by the British public? The negotiations ahead involve an array of complex policy questions, including the much debated trade-off over whether the government should prioritise controlling the inflow of EU immigrants or preferential trade agreements with the EU. But there are many other policy choices that relate to EU budget contributions, EU subsidies, financial services, jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice and so on. None of these featured on the referendum ballot, nor are they issues that most people gave much thought to in advance of the referendum. This project therefore aims to shed light on the question of what the Prime Minister's repeated dictum - 'Brexit Means Brexit' - actually means to ordinary people. What expectations do voters, both Leavers and Remainers, have of Brexit, what process do they want the negotiations to take and ultimately what outcome do they want? We also aim to advance our broader knowledge of how people form policy attitudes. Alongside self-interest, the dominant explanation of attitude formation is that people rely on informational short-cuts, typically cues from political parties. But the EU referendum is a situation in which the two largest parties - Labour and the Conservatives - were openly split internally before the vote and are still divided on the nature of Brexit. We argue that people are also responsive to other cues. These are both social and political in nature. The former are cues about what other types of people in similar social groups think. The latter are based around political divisions based on new opinion based groups formed around the distinction between Leavers and Remainers. Our aim is to thus gather new information on people's views about the Brexit negotiations, but also shed light on what types of social and political cues shape these opinions. In close collaboration with the 'UK in a Changing Europe' programme, we will disseminate information on people's expectations of Brexit by focusing on three crucial questions: What, Why and With What Consequence. i) What do people expect of Brexit, what process do they want the negotiations to take and what are their preferred outcomes? ii) Why, and how, do people arrive at positions on these complex policy issues? iii) What are the consequences of these expectations and preferences for the negotiation positions of policy-makers and the legitimacy of the Brexit outcome? To address these three core questions, we make use of state-of-the-art survey and experimental methods in collaboration with YouGov, a leading online polling company. These methods include 1) conjoint analysis, an innovative experimental design that enables us to determine how people value different features of complex Brexit trade-offs; 2) survey experiments that allow us to causally examine how different in-group cues affect opinions, and 3) a three-wave survey panel, with an oversample of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, that allows us to study the dynamics of public opinion over the course of the Brexit negotiations, as well as heterogeneity in opinions by social group and national identity. We aim to contribute to the public debate on Brexit, through a series of on-going public events, briefings, blog posts and media appearances, and also contribute to the scholarly debate on how citizens form opinions on complex policy issues. The surveys were conducted by YouGov using online polling. YouGov conducts its public opinion surveys online using Active Sampling, using quota sampling of its panel of over 1 registered British users. The panel includes of over 1 million British adults to take part in their surveys, recruited from a host of different sources, including via standard advertising, and strategic partnerships with a broad range of websites. For nationally representative samples, such as the ones used in this dataset, YouGov draws a sub-sample of the panel that is representative of British adults in terms of age, gender, social class and education, and invites this sub-sample to complete a survey. The final data is statistically weighted to the national profile of all adults aged 18+ including by how respondents voted at the previous election, how respondents voted at the EU referendum and their level of political interest.

On December 30, 2020, the United Kingdom's House of Commons voted in favor of the European Union future relationship bill, by 521 votes to 73. The bill made the post-Brexit trade deal law just hours before the transition period was due to end, averting a no-deal Brexit. The deal received such a high level of support in the House of Commons due to being supported by both the Conservative party, and the largest opposition party, the Labour Party. Parliament rejects May's deal three times Although the United Kingdom was set to leave the European Union on March 29, 2019, Members of Parliament rejected Theresa May's negotiated deal on January 15 of that year and the amended deal on March 12. Parliament then voted to reject a no-deal Brexit on March 13, and finally to request the EU for a delay on March 14. After receiving an extension until October 31, 2019, Theresa May attempted to get her deal accepted a third time, but this too was rejected, albeit by a smaller margin. As a result of her inability to get her deal through parliament. Boris Johnson emerged as her successor following a Conservative leadership contest. 14 years of Conservative rule come to an end Johnson won enough seats in the 2019 General Election to ensure the passage of his Withdrawal Agreement on December 20, 2019. The fortunes of Johnson and the Conservative Party quickly turned after this victory, however. A series of scandals cost Johnson his popularity, and by 2022 they were trailing Labour in the polls. Things deteriorated further when Liz Truss replaced Johnson as leader, when her budget caused a brief economic crisis, leading to her resignation after just 45 days in office. Rishi Sunak followed Truss as Prime Minister, but struggled to reverse a dismal polling position for the party in time for the 2024 General Election, which saw them lose to the Labour Party, ending their 14 years as the UK's ruling party.

A recent analysis on the impact of Brexit suggests that in 2023, the United Kingdom's economy was *** percent smaller than it would have been in a base scenario where the UK never left the EU. The estimated hit to the UK's gross domestic product (GDP) increases to ***** percent in 2024, and to *** percent by 2025 in this forecast. UK growth cut at start of turbulent 2025 After growing by *** percent in 2024, the UK economy is expected to grow by *** percent in 2025, down from an earlier forecast of *** percent. As of 2025, the UK economy is approximately *** percent larger than it was just before the COVID-19 pandemic five years earlier, which delivered a sudden and severe economic shock to the country. While the initial bounce back from this collapse was robust, the recovery slowed by the end of 2020, and it wasn't until late 2021 that the economy returned to its pre-pandemic size. Throughout 2022 and 2023, the economy continued to struggle, and even experienced a recession at the end of 2023. How voters feel about Brexit in 2025 Since the middle of 2021, a growing majority of voters in Britain have advised that they think Brexit was the wrong decision. As of January 2025, around ** percent thought it was wrong to leave the EU, compared with just ** percent in April 2021. By comparison, the share of Britons who think Brexit was the right decision has fallen from ** percent to ** percent in the same time period. Voters are, however, still quite divided on what relationship they want with the EU, with only ** percent supporting rejoining completely. Furthermore, Brexit has fallen behind other issues for voters such as the economy, the NHS, and immigration and the issue played a much smaller role in the 2024 election than it did in 2019.

In 2022, the United Kingdom imported around 19 billion U.S. billion dollars’ worth of pharmaceutical products from the rest of the European Union. This is a significant decrease compared to years before the Brexit when imports were up to 27 billion dollars. However, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic might also be a cause for this development.

Which countries are the products coming from?

Of the EU, Belgium had the second highest value of pharmaceutical products imported into the UK, amounting to some 2.1 billion British pounds in 2022, topped only by Germany at approximately 4.9 billion British pounds. The UK had a negative trade balance with Belgium of around 1.4 billion British pounds, which means the UK imports a considerable amount more pharmaceutical goods from there than it exports.

Impact of Brexit

In a 2018 survey of EU influencers, 32 percent believed that EU pharmaceutical companies will be negatively affected by Brexit, while 41 percent believes that trade barriers will potentially impact the supply of medicines. Additionally, another survey of pharmaceutical industry board level executives revealed that half of those question indicated that Brexit had impacted on the attractiveness of the UK pharmaceutical market.

As of June 2025, 56 percent of people in Great Britain thought that it was wrong to leave the European Union, compared with 31 percent who thought it was the right decision. During this time period, the share of people who regret Brexit has been slightly higher than those who support it, except for some polls in Spring 2021, which showed higher levels of support for Brexit. Is Bregret setting in? Since late July 2022, the share of people who regret Brexit in these surveys has consistently been above 50 percent. Additionally, a survey from January 2025 highlighted that most people in the UK thought that Brexit had had a mainly negative impact, especially on the cost of living and the economy. Despite there being a clear majority of voters who now regret Brexit, there is as yet no particular future relationship with the EU that has overwhelming support. As of late 2023, 31 percent of Britons wanted to rejoin the EU, while 30 percent merely wanted to improve trade relations and not rejoin either the EU or the single market. Leave victory in 2016 defied the polls In the actual referendum, which took place on June 23, 2016, Leave won 51.9 percent of the votes and Remain 48.1 percent, after several polls in the run-up to the referendum put Remain slightly ahead. Remain were anticipated to win until early results from North East England suggested that Leave had performed far better than expected, with this pattern replicated throughout the country. This event was repeated somewhat in the U.S. election of that year, which saw Donald Trump win several key swing states such as Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, despite predictions that these states would vote for Hillary Clinton.