The article is part of the problem. UK politics and the media narratives around it have beeen utterly wrecked by the fight over Brexit and the attempts to give its creators the boot. For example, take this claim: "Investment is down and inflation higher than it would have been inside the European Union." The UK's inflation in the year to November 2022 was 10.7%, compared to 10.1% in the Eurozone. It just doesn't seem at all plausible that the UK would somehow have substantially lower inflation if it were in the EU, based on what countries actually in the EU have experienced, yet it's treated as so obviously true that only lying Brexiters would reject it.
This belief is boosted by the fact the British press only ever compares our inflation with France, which has the lowest inflation in Europe due to substantial nuclear generating capacity and energy subsidies funded through borrowing. Our government was attacked for attempting even a fraction of those energy subsidies to the point they did a U-turn because ultimately the public pays for it, but that downside is ignored when talking about France. They also also have substantially more national debt for obvious reasons... but luckily the UK national debt is usually only compared with Germany's.
I don't think people who say "UK inflation would have been better in the EU" are basing that on "in UK, it was 10.7% and in EU it was 10.1%", but rather on "since Brexit, wealth generated by export has dropped, wealth generated by import has dropped, wealth generated by EU migration workforce has dropped, ... which obviously means that the crisis can only be worse". It does not mean they are right, but even if UK had a smaller inflation than countries still in EU, you can still say that UK would have been better if you see that all indicators show that the cost of life was at the end globally affected negatively by Brexit.
I always think that comparing inflation or national debt to other countries is meaningless. A big national debt used for good investment is way better than a small national debt while the infrastructures fall apart, and the state and cost of the infrastructure can be very different in each country. And for the same level of inflation, the effects would be very different based on the resources and market characteristics of the country and which measures are taken.
(edit: and indeed, if you re-read the text around the quote you've extracted, this is indeed the reasoning: the author does not justify that with a comparison of the inflation rate, but with a list of where the Brexit made things worse)
> The UK's inflation in the year to November 2022 was 10.7%, compared to 10.1% in the Eurozone. It just doesn't seem at all plausible that the UK would somehow have substantially lower inflation if it were in the EU
10.7% v 10.1% is 0.6%. how long before that compounds into a sizable figure?
I never really bought into the doomsday scenarios. Just a slow slide of Spanish package holidays getting more expensive and people not connecting the dots.
This belief is boosted by the fact the British press only ever compares our inflation with France, which has the lowest inflation in Europe due to substantial nuclear generating capacity and energy subsidies funded through borrowing. Our government was attacked for attempting even a fraction of those energy subsidies to the point they did a U-turn because ultimately the public pays for it, but that downside is ignored when talking about France. They also also have substantially more national debt for obvious reasons... but luckily the UK national debt is usually only compared with Germany's.