Brexit 10 years later: How the UK economy and politics changed, in charts

On June 23, 2016, Britons headed to the polls to vote on whether to stay in the European Union. A shock result emerged overnight: the electorate had voted to leave the bloc by 52% to 48%. The pound tanked. London's FTSE 100 tumbled. Then-Prime Minister David Cameron — who had called the referendum and led the campaign for the Remain vote — resigned. Since then, the U.K. haggled for a deal, as Cameron's successor, Theresa May, failed to pass a proposal three times before stepping down. Brexit was eventually delivered by Prime Minister Boris Johnson in 2020. The Brexit campaign promised to "take back control" of immigration, free up more money for the country's health service, and forge trade deals with the rest of the world. A decade later, Brexit still looms over life in Britain. Here's how the U.K.'s economic and political scene has fared since then, in charts: How Brexit affected U.K. growth The U.K. economy has largely failed to experience a post-Brexit boost after upending ties with its largest trading partner. While shocks such as the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 and Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022 hit growth globally, Stanford professor Nicholas Bloom estimates that by 2025, Brexit had reduced the U.K.'s GDP by 6-8%. He wrote that the negative impacts "reflect a combination of elevated uncertainty, reduced demand, diverted management time, and increased misallocation of resources from a protracted Brexit process." How U.K. …