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United Kingdom

UK Falls Into Recession 224

The UK has entered a recession after GDP contracted 0.3% in the fourth quarter of 2023, the Office for National Statistics said Thursday. This follows a 0.1% GDP decline in Q3. The data shows meager 0.1% growth for the full year, the worst performance since 2009 barring 2020. All main sectors declined in Q4, with manufacturing, construction and wholesale facing the biggest drops, only partially offset by upticks in rentals and hotels. The recession deals a blow to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's economic pledges ahead of local elections Thursday and the national vote expected this year, potentially widening the lead held by the opposition Labour Party in polls.
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UK Falls Into Recession

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  • Brexit didn't help (Score:4, Informative)

    by fred6666 ( 4718031 ) on Thursday February 15, 2024 @08:40AM (#64241426)
    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by geekmux ( 1040042 )

      They probably should have taken a tip from other professionals. Easiest way to avoid a recession these days is to simply re-define it away.

    • You're so wrong. Now struggling families can eat sovereignty and be proud less culturally similar, educated Europeans come to the UK. I fly the flag because I'm just so proud. ...oh and the "liberal elite" are now also poor and unhappy.
  • by pr0nbot ( 313417 ) on Thursday February 15, 2024 @09:02AM (#64241490)

    For what it's worth, growth figures are usually fairly provisional when first announced, and often get revised later when more hard numbers are available.
    https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy... [ons.gov.uk]
    This news is based on the first quarterly estimate, which as you can see from the handy chart is not the final estimate.

  • Taxes (Score:4, Insightful)

    by TJHook3r ( 4699685 ) on Thursday February 15, 2024 @09:03AM (#64241498)
    The morons are desperately trying to implement some tax cuts as a bribe ahead of an election. Trust me, the country cannot afford tax cuts, especially not at the expense of public services that are already at breaking point
    • that are already at breaking point

      Breaking point was several years ago. It's turning into an outright dystopia now with utilities failing to supply gas to towns, sewage treatment plants just discharging untreated waste directly into waterways, electrical companies tearing up roads and not fixing them.

      But hey we don't need to worry. Everything will be better once we deport a few people to beautiful safe Rwanda. /s

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      "If our poll numbers don't go up, we will have to cut your public services."

      It's literally "the beatings will continue until morale improves."

  • Turns out... (Score:4, Informative)

    by skam240 ( 789197 ) on Thursday February 15, 2024 @09:05AM (#64241504)

    Turns out suddenly leaving a massive free trade union that your economy has grown entangled with over the course of decades of integration cant be done without noticeable economic repercussions. Who would have thought!? Apparently not the pro Brexit folks as the separation was supposed to be all upsides.

  • by sinij ( 911942 ) on Thursday February 15, 2024 @09:05AM (#64241506)
    If you look at EU numbers [europa.eu], it is slightly worse. When you directly compare to Germany [reuters.com], UK is doing better. In both cases, differences are within measurement uncertainty and will like get further revised down in all cases.
    • Well, that means brexit is roughly equivalent to suddenly losing access to cheap oil and gas and hence killing off a large chunk of the industry.

      • by sinij ( 911942 )
        That comparison would only make sense if UK was not a signatory to sanctions and continued trading with Russia.
        • Not really. The UK imported most of their natural gas from Norway, Germany imported half of their natural gas from Russia. So when gas delivery literally stopped overnight, Germany had to scramble to replace that gas and to build the LNG infrastructure in record time. That was very expensive and lead to a heavy hit to the German industry which essentially stopped manufacturing most energy intensive products like aluminium and certain chemicals.

          So no, that comparison would not only make sense if UK was not a

          • by sinij ( 911942 )
            Russia was involved in illegal occupations [wikipedia.org] since at least 2008 and in Ukraine since 2014. Germany shutting down nuclear power plants and becoming more dependent on Russian gas lead to very predictable consequences.

            Russian sanctions happened to both the UK and Germany, while Brexit only happened to the UK. Therefore, concluding that effects of Brexit on UK are the same as costs of Russian sanctions on Germany is unsupported by existing premises.
    • Slightly better link; your first link are forecasts, here are the actual numbers published yesterday https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/... [europa.eu] The new numbers do not affect your conclusions

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        The other thing to keep in mind about the UK is that the disparity between the rich and the poor is greater than many European countries. When Germany's economy is slow, the least well off don't suffer as much as they do in the UK. Meanwhile, in the UK the wealthy barely notice it, because everything is set up to make sure they aren't the losers.

        We will have an election in the UK this year. The choice is between more cuts to public services and some tax cuts that will doubtless mostly benefit high earners,

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Thursday February 15, 2024 @09:55AM (#64241678) Homepage Journal

      Germany started from a better position though. The UK crashed its economy and is suffering from brexit.

      Interestingly Japanese media was lamenting today that Germany just overtook Japan to become the world's 3rd largest economy.

    • Just because the UK is doing better than Germany doesn't mean it wouldn't have done even better if it stayed in the EU.
      Most likely, the UK staying in the EU would have benefited both the EU (including Germany) and the UK.

      • by sinij ( 911942 )
        I agree, UK staying in the EU would have benefited GDP of both the EU and the UK. If anything, the outcome we are seeing is about the best case scenario for the UK economy.

        I don't think framing of Brexit solely in terms of better or worse for the GDP is objective. Many necessary policies, from sanctions on Russia to the universal healthcare are both detrimental to the GDP and are also absolutely the right thing to do. Framing every problem in terms of money is shortsighted.
        • I agree. Brexit could be a good thing despite being bad for the UK's economy.

          However, Brexit was sold, at least in part, as a way to improve the economy of the UK. Clearly it didn't happen. First step is to admit that. It was one of the main argument for Brexit.
          And this is despite the fact that the UK, like most of the richer countries inside the EU, was a net contributor to the EU budget. Just like rich regions of the UK tend to subsidize poorer regions.

          The other main argument was immigration. Since Brexit

    • What about Hunter's emails and Hillary's laptop?

    • I wouldn't compare anything to Germany. It is a massive underperformer both in terms of impact from the gas crisis as well as recovery from COVID. It's like celebrating coming second last in a race.

      The stupid part is just how much of this was voluntary. If it weren't for Brexit the UK wouldn't be in recession now. Historically the UK has outperformed Germany who have historically outperformed much of the EU.

    • If you look at EU numbers [europa.eu], it is slightly worse. When you directly compare to Germany [reuters.com], UK is doing better. In both cases, differences are within measurement uncertainty and will like get further revised down in all cases.

      It may become quite pointless to fall for the American comparison game at a certain point. No one served three plates of shit is gonna argue for the best tasting one.

  • by Fons_de_spons ( 1311177 ) on Thursday February 15, 2024 @10:04AM (#64241722)
    My God people calm down. It is the economy, stupid.
    • by xanthos ( 73578 )

      My God people calm down. It is the economy, stupid.

      Exactly. Reading some of the comments makes you wonder if the posters ever took a course on economics. So the UK managed to meet the technical description of a recession. Big whoop. Theoretically they could cross back out of it next month.

      The real scary bit is all the knee jerk reactions by self appointed experts. If you find stories like this triggering, you really need to unplug and take a long quiet walk.
      Bottom line: Nothing you post here will change the world.

  • ... win stupid prizes. How is Brexit working out for you in the UK?

    I do realize that there are people that voted against brexit and also against the morons and clowns that the UK has had as "leaders" the last few years. These people are really getting screwed due to no fault of their own. The rest deserves this and dit it to themselves.

  • by Qbertino ( 265505 ) <moiraNO@SPAMmodparlor.com> on Thursday February 15, 2024 @11:00AM (#64241944)

    The UK has been in an economic nose-dive ever since Brexit. The irony is, even the allegedly bad things for which they left the EU got even worse after leaving and would've been much better hadn't they fallen for populist bullsh*t and left.

    You'd somehow expect that they some time in the future could recover and regroup, but right now it's just one bad thing after another. I expect the decline of UK GDP to continue for the foreseeable time. It's a shame and despite being a pro-EU "continental Europeanist" I see no point in gloating. It's just one giant epic sh*t-show. And by and large Thatcher is to blame and her totally mismanaged transition away from heavy industry and her perpetual british EU bickering that sadly became a go-to british fad to explain all their problems and prevent them from actually solving them.

    • by UnknowingFool ( 672806 ) on Thursday February 15, 2024 @11:47AM (#64242164)
      One of the biggest benefits of Brexit from the perspective of the EU is that any country thinking about leaving sees what happens when they do. There is always some discontent in the EU as the grass is always greener in the other pasture. Well the UK moved to the other pasture to find the grass was browner than supporters expected. (Everyone else was telling the UK the pasture was brown.) Now the outlook in the EU is that the grass isn't as green as they like but they view the UK's brown field in pity.

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