Here's an interesting story in the FT today. It's a report that summarizes fiscal performance this quarter compared to Q4 2019 (i.e. pre-pandemic) broken down by region of the UK. It shows that the best performing region is Northern Ireland who are almost back to pre-pandemic levels of performance being less than 1% (-0.3%) off those numbers. This compares with say, the North West who are nearly 4% off (i.e. negative) over the same period and the average for the UK as a whole of (-2.1%). Added to this the report also shows that N. Ireland was the only region of the UK whose imports grew in the first half of the year. Of course there are many variables at play here but importantly this region is essentially still in the EU and has preferred access to both the EU and the UK. I do wonder if this is a glimpse into an alternate reality, i.e. where we'd all be if the UK hadn't left the EU at all.
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