Chris Johns: Fantasy no-deal Brexit has cost UK equivalent of 22 hospitals

Brexit planning has so far cost the UK government £4 billion. Much is made of this figure because it represents hard cash actually spent. These are direct costs. But it’s the invisible damage that is much bigger – and gets far less attention. Goldman Sachs, for example, estimates that Brexit has resulted in £600 million of lost GDP per week since the referendum. My own calculations suggest that the implied loss of £85 billion to the economy maps to £28 billion of tax revenue gone missing. So far. That £4 billion in Brexit planning spending makes the headlines but the loss of £28 billion in taxes obviously hurts a lot more. Leading Brexiteer Daniel Hannan once claimed that seven state-of-the-art hospitals could be built for £10 billion. On that kind of arithmetic, I reckon that the UK has 22 hospitals gone missing as a result of Brexit.