This is what we are not being told by the British Media. The cost of living crisis is worse in 13 EU countries — is this ‘due to Brexit’?

Graham Charles Lear
2 min readJul 17, 2023

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13 EU countries had higher inflation and 7 were in double digits

The ‘cost of living crisis’ has been one of three main news stories recently, the other two being Huw Edwards and immigration. Accordingly, I took a look at the latest inflation figures issued by the Office for National Statistics and the EU’s official statistics agency.

In the chart below I show the headline measure used by both organisations, known as ‘CPIH’. In order to show a true comparison I have shown the month of May because the UK and not all EU countries have yet to publish the figures for June.

Headline annual inflation rate (CPIH), May 2023

  1. Hungary: 21.9%
  2. Czechia: 12.5%
  3. Poland: 12.5%
  4. Latvia: 12.3%
  5. Slovakia: 12.3%
  6. Estonia: 11.2%
  7. Lithuania: 10.7%
  8. Romania: 9.6%
  9. Austria: 8.8%
  10. Bulgaria: 8.6%
  11. Croatia: 8.3%
  12. Slovenia: 8.1%
  13. Italy: 8.0%
  14. United Kingdom: 7.9%

[Sources: Official EU Statistics agency and the UK Office for National Statistics.]

Around half the EU’s member countries have higher inflation than the UK

The EU’s and the UK’s statistics agencies now use ‘CPIH’ as the headline measure of inflation, so I has followed suit. analysis shows that around half of the EU27 have inflation running at higher levels than in the UK.

Seven of these countries experienced double-digit inflation in May — far more than the UK’s 7.9%.

Even if you take the average of the inflation rates in all the 27 countries this is 7.8% — almost exactly the same as the UK’s rate.

I have seen many articles and comments on social media that the UK’s inflation rate is “due to Brexit”. I am therefore compelled to ask these people whether the higher inflation in almost half the EU is also “due to Brexit”?

Once again I has shown up the sheer absurdity of Remainer-Rejoiners blaming absolutely everything on Brexit.

I share the view of several independent economists that the Bank of England’s performance in managing inflation — its №1 task — has been poor. This has nothing to do with Brexit.

[ Sources: EU Commission | ONS ]

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Graham Charles Lear
Graham Charles Lear

Written by Graham Charles Lear

What is life without a little controversy in it? Quite boring and sterile would be my answer.

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