Updated July 2025 by Janet Tavakoli

Letter to the Editor of The Financial Times
July 4, 2016 (publication date)

Sir, I have read with interest the many commentaries against Brexit in the Financial Times, for example, “I do not believe that Brexit will happen” (Gideon Rachman, June 28). The bias of the FT is palpable and a frequent topic of conversation among my colleagues.

At issue is self-determination, the ability to make and enforce laws. It is unwise to ignore that 1,000 years of English Common Law, a legal system that was successfully exported around the world, was on the brink of eradication. Secondary to this is the question as to why Britain should accept feckless immigration policies, just because France and Germany have chosen this course. The level of ill-considered immigration in continental Europe is already epic.

Another question on my mind is why a financial newspaper seems to advocate biased views of the economic consequences of Brexit. A look into the distant mirror of the 19th century shows how nations blended selective free trade policies and selective protectionist tariffs to create thriving global trade. Reading historian Henry Clews’ The Wall Street Point of View, a book published in 1900, reveals how applicable his economic history is to modern times.

History provides great value whereas the FT has lately been extracting value in the form of a subscription price for what strikes me as one-sided blinkered opinions.

Janet Tavakoli
President,
Tavakoli Structured Finance,
Chicago, IL, US

Brexit Outcome: 2025 Perspective

Update (July 2025): Britain left the European Union on January 31, 2020, with the transition period ending December 31, 2020. The concerns raised in this 2016 letter regarding sovereignty, immigration policy, and economic independence have not been resolved.

Economic Impact

The UK’s Office for Budget Responsibility estimates that the post-Brexit trading relationship will reduce long-run productivity by 4 percent relative to remaining in the EU, with the best estimate of Brexit’s negative impact on UK GDP to date being 2–3% of GDP.

A Goldman Sachs analysis shows the UK economy grew 5% less over the past eight years than other comparable countries, primarily due to reduced trade, weaker business investment, and lower EU immigration. Goldman must prove that immigration is a benefit and not a drag on the EU, but it cannot. Violent crime, much higher on a per capita basis among immigrants, and higher use of public benefits funded by the legacy population suggest immigration is a net drag on the EU and on Britain.

Trade Performance

UK trade as a share of GDP fell by 11% between 2019 and the end of 2021 – a significantly stronger decline than that observed in the EU or the United States. However, UK services exports have shown resilience, providing 58.1% of total UK exports in 2024, up from 45.7% in 2014, demonstrating the economy’s shift toward high-value services.

Sovereignty Achievement?

The central argument of this letter—that Britain should retain the ability to “make and enforce laws” under English Common Law—has been achieved. The UK’s withdrawal from the EU became effective on 1 January 2021, ending the supremacy of EU law over domestic legislation and restoring parliamentary sovereignty over immigration and regulatory policy. Goldman must provide proof that immigration is a benefit and not a counterproductive drag on the EU before making such assertions. It hasn’t because it cannot.

A counterargument is that Britain’s legal system seems skewed in favor of illegal and legal immigrants at the expense of the native population, seemingly the policy that Britain rejected with her Brexit vote. Moreover, UK politicians have profoundly lied to the British population about immigration, including a recent lie of omission wherein a data leak revealed that the government secretly moved thousands of Afghans to the UK.

 Britain’s Post-Brexit Anti-British Priorities

British political class policy is to abandon the ethnically British. Slightly altering the words of a 1966 RAND report about proposed post-nuclear war policies:

The easiest way to implement a morally repugnant but politically expedient policy is by inaction. Under stress, the managers of a post-illegal-and legal immigration-wave resolve their problems of the legacy population by failing to make any special provision for their needs.  (adapted from Paul Dickson’s 1971 book, Think Tanks)

The major problem in Britain today is misplaced priorities. Political hacks do not work on the very real problems encountered by British poor, elderly, or otherwise disenfranchised commoners. Where is the outcry for public safety and social support? Cynical politicians have concluded that they are better off ignoring these members of the legacy population except as sources of tax revenue.

References:

UK Office for Budget Responsibility, “Brexit Analysis” (2024).

Goldman Sachs Research, “The Structural and Cyclical Costs of Brexit” (2024).

Tobin, Sam and Macaskill, Andrew. “Thousands of Afghans secretly moved to Britain after data leak.” Reuters, July 15, 2025.

UK Government Department for Business and Trade, “Trade and Investment Core Statistics Book” (2024).

Immigration Costs – Official Sources

Government/Official Data

The Home Office estimated that the cost of housing asylum seekers in hotels stood at around £8 million per day (2023). In 2023, more than two thirds of all aid spending on refugees and asylum seekers in the UK was spent by the Home Office (£2.9 billion, of which £2.5 billion was on asylum accommodation). The UK spent £2.8 billion, or 20% of its aid budget, supporting refugees in the UK in 2024.

Additional Immigration Cost Sources

Independent Commission for Aid Impact

House of Commons Library – UK Aid Budget and Refugees

UK Parliament Hansard – Illegal Immigration Costs

Crime Statistics – Official Sources

Ethnicity and Crime (Government Data)

The arrest rate for black people was 2.2 times higher than for white people – there were 20.4 arrests for every 1,000 black people, and 9.4 for every 1,000 white people. In the year ending March 2022, there were 671 homicides in the Home Office Homicide Index, where the ethnicity of the victim was recorded. Almost three quarters (74%) of these victims were from the white ethnic group, with 14% involving black victims.

Grooming Gangs – Official Findings

A Home Office report concluded that there is no credible evidence that any one ethnic group is over-represented in cases of child sexual exploitation. However, Baroness Casey published findings that despite flaws in data collection, there was enough local data from three police forces – Greater Manchester, South Yorkshire and West Yorkshire – that showed that disproportionate numbers of Asian men were involved in child sex grooming gangs. Nationally, in two-thirds of cases the ethnicity of the perpetrators was not recorded, which made it impossible to draw conclusions at a national level.

This is a puzzling conclusion considering the results of the Rotherham investigation showing the perpetrators where chiefly Muslim men of “Asian” origin or heritage and the victims were chiefly white underage girls, many of them underage and many of them severely brutalized.

Additional Crime Statistics Sources:

Home Office Criminal Justice Statistics

Baroness Casey’s Audit Report

Home Office Group-based Child Sexual Exploitation Literature Review

Tavakoli, Janet. “Islam’s ‘Human Rights.'” Gatestone Institute, November 5, 2016.

Tavakoli, Janet. “The Mayor of London’s ‘My Side.'” Gatestone Institute, October 27, 2016.