A no-deal Brexit could cost Britain’s young people as much as £108,000 in lost earnings by 2050 – the equivalent of more than £3,000 a year, according to a new report.
Analysis by the campaign group Our Future Our Choice[OFOC], which is seeking to secure a People’s Vote on Brexit, also calculates that a Chequers-style withdrawal would likely cost young people around £51,000 over the same period while a softer EEA-style Brexit, where the UK would stay in the single market, would likely cost around £20,000.
The conclusions of Young People and Brexit are endorsed in a foreword to the report by Sir John Major, the former Prime Minister, who wrote: “I would urge every parliamentarian to read and absorb the findings of this report.
He pointed out Brexit “was never the choice of the young, who voted overwhelmingly to remain in the EU while their elders voted to leave”.
He added: “OFOC sets out with great clarity the implications for young people and I commend it warmly.”
The campaign group said the stark costs of a hard WTO-style Brexit were modelled at a worst case of up to £108,000 in lost earnings for young people by 2050 with the likely cost amounting to some £76,000 in lost wages.
It noted how a hard Brexit would cost young people three times more than university tuition fees and amounts to more than double the deposit first time buyers need to buy a house.
OFOC commissioned the research from Thomas Peto, an economic researcher at Oxford University, who based it on civil service analysis.
Will Hutton, the Oxford political economist, said: “This careful analysis shows just how badly young people - already disadvantaged by the breakdown of career structures and high housing costs - will be further hit by Brexit. They are surely right to protest in such numbers that their future is being profoundly compromised.”
Femi Oluwole, the OFOC’s chief spokesman, said: “This report shows that young people will lose the most from any Brexit deal. We are a generation who don’t want to live with Brexit, yet it will cost us three times more than tuition fees or double the average deposit needed for a house in lost wages and earnings.
“Now that the implications for our generation have become clear, we need a People’s Vote on the Government’s Brexit deal,” he added.
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