The promise that Brexit would release £350 million a week for the NHS was “exactly and perfectly wrong”, according to a leading economist who estimates that leaving the European Union has instead cost Britain about £3,000 per person each year.
Professor Nick Bloom said the economy was now between 6 and 8 per cent smaller than it would have been without the Brexit process.
He argued that recovering even part of that lost economic output could dramatically increase the resources available for healthcare, potentially allowing the government to reduce waiting lists and refurbish hospitals.
The Stanford University economist told The Independent that the scale of the loss showed how badly the economic argument made during the referendum had unravelled.
The £350 million figure became one of the defining images of the 2016 campaign after Vote Leave printed it on the side of a red bus alongside the words: “Let’s fund our NHS instead.”
Ten years later, Bloom believes the country has experienced the opposite outcome.
Brexit estimated to have cost £3,000 per person
Bloom is one of five authors of The Economic Impact of Brexit, a National Bureau of Economic Research working paper examining Britain’s economic performance since the referendum.
The researchers combined national economic data with information gathered from thousands of British businesses through the Decision Maker Panel survey.
They concluded that by the end of 2025, Brexit had reduced UK GDP by between 6 and 8 per cent compared with what it might otherwise have been.
The researchers also estimated that investment was between 12 and 18 per cent lower, while employment and productivity were each between 3 and 4 per cent lower.
Bloom translated the GDP estimate into a more immediate figure for households.
“It’s something like £3,000 a year, per typical British person, that we’ve lost.”
He attributed roughly half of the damage to the new barriers affecting trade with the EU.
Europe accounted for around half of Britain’s trade before the referendum. Leaving the single market introduced additional paperwork, border checks and regulatory costs for companies selling goods across the Channel.
Bloom said the remainder of the damage came from the prolonged political uncertainty that followed the referendum.
Britain went through years of negotiations, parliamentary votes and leadership changes before formally leaving the EU and putting its new trading relationship into operation.
During that period, businesses delayed recruitment and investment because they did not know what kind of Brexit would eventually emerge.
What the NHS could have received
Bloom compared the estimated economic loss with the resources currently devoted to healthcare.
Before the Covid pandemic, health spending was equivalent to about 9.7 per cent of GDP. His upper estimate of the Brexit impact, 8 per cent, is therefore close to the size of the country’s entire pre-pandemic healthcare budget.
He argued that regaining the lost output could, in theory, increase the NHS budget by about two thirds.
That could provide money for hospital repairs, higher pay, improved equipment and additional capacity to tackle waiting lists.
His argument does not mean there is a specific pot of Brexit money which could immediately be transferred to the NHS.
GDP measures the value of activity across the entire economy. A larger economy would normally generate more tax revenue, but the government would receive only a proportion of the additional output and would still have to decide how to use it.
The comparison is intended to illustrate the scale of the estimated loss rather than present a fully costed NHS spending proposal.
It also depends on a counterfactual calculation of how Britain might have performed had it remained inside the EU. Such estimates remain contested because economists cannot observe that alternative directly.
The Office for Budget Responsibility has used a lower central estimate, assuming the post-Brexit trading relationship will eventually leave UK productivity around 4 per cent below the level it would have reached inside the EU.
Even that assessment points to a lasting reduction in economic output and the tax revenues available for public services.
Farage described as a ‘spectre’ over Burnham’s EU reset
Bloom urged Prime Minister Andy Burnham to pursue a closer economic relationship with Brussels in an effort to reduce trade barriers and recover some of the lost growth.
Burnham has already described Brexit as a “wrong turn” and promised to accelerate negotiations with the EU.
A recent YouGov poll found that 55 per cent of Britons agreed with that assessment, while 21 per cent considered Brexit a right turn.
The government has not proposed rejoining the EU, single market or customs union. Its immediate objective is to secure practical agreements that make trade easier while retaining Britain’s position outside the bloc.
Bloom said Nigel Farage remained a political “spectre” hanging over that process.
The threat of a future Reform UK government reversing new agreements could discourage businesses from making long-term investments based on closer UK-EU ties.
Burnham also faces pressure from Brexit supporters who are likely to portray regulatory alignment with Brussels as a surrender of sovereignty.
That leaves the prime minister attempting to secure economic benefits from closer cooperation without appearing to reverse the referendum result.
The £350m controversy has returned
The original bus claim suggested Britain was sending £350 million to the EU every week and could spend that money on the NHS after leaving.
The figure did not account for the rebate which reduced Britain’s contribution or the money returned through EU programmes.
Former Vote Leave chief executive Lord Matthew Elliott was recently challenged about the promise during a Channel 4 interview.
When it was pointed out that the government had increased NHS funding before Britain had left the EU, Elliott struggled to explain why Brexit had been necessary to provide the money.
The exchange renewed questions about the £350 million promise and whether it had ever represented a realistic financial dividend.
Bloom’s intervention goes further. His argument is that Brexit did not merely fail to produce the promised NHS windfall. It weakened the economy from which healthcare and every other public service must be funded.
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