This is EXCELLENT, highly recommended. You'll rarely hear more debunking of popular myths and misapprehensions packed into 23 minutes...

@MarriottNigel In fact, as I wrote elsewhere, you are "begging the question": you are assuming (ie, as a premise) the very thing which you would need to demonstrate (ie, as a conclusion) for your argument to have any purchase. 5/5

@MarriottNigel ...there's no particularly compelling reason why you should anchor the UK's performance on that of some of the EU-27's worst performing members. 4/n

@MarriottNigel Given that the claims of the paper which you are attempting to rebut are PRECISELY that Brexit has caused a substantial hit to UK growth during that period... 3/n

@MarriottNigel If the UK had managed to match the growth of the EU 27 as a whole in the period since Q2 2016 it would already be about 3 percentage points above where it finishes in your chart. 2/n

@MaleHumanPerso1 Note that UK would not even need to get close to matching Spain's cumulative real growth since Q2 2016 for the UK economy now to be roughly 6% larger that it actually, currently is... 2/2

"... by Spain and Poland... ", not Portugal, obviously. 🤦🏽‍♂️

If you think that UK **COULD NOT** have grown as fast as Spain since Q2 2016, you'll need to provide quite separate warrants for such a claim. But this pretty picture will never cut it. 4/4

...when the claims made by the NBER paper that you are attempting to rebut are PRECISELY that – absent the UK's exit from the EU – the UK economy might indeed have done just that! 3/n

Your embarrissingly inept "begging the question" rebuttal effectively **assumes** that UK growth could not have significantly outperformed that of France and Germany over the relevant period... 2/n

Paradigm irrationality:

Since w/b 29/04/24, Home Office publishes weekly data on numbers of migrants & of small boats (SBs) that reached UK – AND on numbers of migrants & of small boats that were prevented. So far in 2025: 39,292 migrants arrived in 636 SBs; 21,225 migrants were prevented in 809 SBs.

Grim economic prognosis from Martin Wolf in today's FT: https://t.co/oDQ8OYPOYx

Numerous recent reports compare (unfavourably!) rising asylum claims in the UK to supposedly falling asylum claims in the rest of Europe. The fact remains that the level of new claims in UK in 2024 and 2025 is still far behind the level in the largest EU countries.

Like a punch in the stomach. These estimates for the impact of Brexit on UK GDP (published November 2025) are alarmingly large: https://t.co/mQFq2XuAnq

Lauren Gilbert's analysis of the fiscal impact of immigration in the UK (published today) flies in the face of the uninformed claims made by Farage, Tice, Lowe, Lam, Jenrick, and the rest of the bigot-based community. https://t.co/dbatfZm9cy

The UK's problems are NOT caused by migration. (Tim Harford in the FT, 18/09/2025) https://t.co/T6Srj4kHUb

France today, described by @AgnesCPoirier But delete "France" and write in "UK", "USA" or a number of other countries. This hermetically sealed "safe room" mentality has mushroomed with the advent of SM. Dare to resist? The SM bosses will shriek "denial of free speech!"

Podcasting years before anyone even thought of the word "podcasting". Thank you so much for having enriched and enlightened so many, Melvin!

The brutal reality: the >3 year struggle of one Sudanese refugee to reach safety. https://t.co/xeTbYuMvNr

Since w/b 29/04/24, Home Office publishes weekly data on numbers of migrants & of small boats (SBs) that reached UK – AND on numbers of migrants & of small boats that were prevented. So far in 2025: 14,812 migrants arrived in 263 SBs; 10,002 migrants were prevented in 363 SBs.