In the weeks leading up to the referendum on the UK’s membership of the EU, the Leave campaign consistently used the word “scaremongering” to describe warnings from the Remain side over the economic impact of Brexit. Now, just a month into Britain’s post-Brexit journey, we’re starting to see real evidence that these warnings were prescient indeed.
Today we read that confidence in the Scottish housebuilding sector is all but evaporating in the wake of the vote, thus putting the country’s affordable housing programme at risk. A survey carried out by the Chartered Institute of Housing Scotland (CIHS) highlights that almost 70 per cent of housing professionals have doubts the Scottish Government’s target to build 10,000 much-needed affordable homes a year can now be met. If the housebuilding programme stalls, there could be serious implications for social cohesion, says the CIHS director.
More than half of those surveyed, meanwhile, believe Brexit will have a negative impact on their own organisation’s development plans. Such uncertainty is clearly bad for a sector that is still recovering from the 2008 credit crunch.
Elsewhere, MPs are warning that attempts to end free movement as part of any forthcoming Brexit negotiations could lead to a surge in migrants arriving before new rules come into force.
Members of Westminster's Home Affairs Committee are also urging Theresa May’s government to set a cut-off date and end uncertainty for EU nationals already living in the UK, making the point that they should not be used as bargaining chips.
All this shows that despite Mrs May’s rhetoric that “Brexit means Brexit”, we are still no further forward in terms of what it actually means. It is high time she and her ministers, some of whom led the Leave campaign and created the uncertainty we are now living through, came up with some concrete solutions. That is surely the least they owe the country.
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