Cornwall's MPs weigh in on Brexit's impact a decade later
From funding cuts to fishing rights, MPs discuss challenges and changes
Cornwall has the honour – a dubious one, Remainers would say – of being the place Boris Johnson kicked off the Vote Leave bus tour.
Who can forget him standing on the steps of his Brexit bus on May 11, 2016 – you know, the one emblazoned with the controversial £350 million-a-week claim for the NHS – on Truro’s Lemon Quay while brandishing a pasty?
The irony was as delicious as the oggy – the Cornish pasty having Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) status under EU law, of course.
As we all know, Boris’ campaign – with the help of others – proved successful. Cornwall voted with a 56.5% majority to leave the European Union.
So how has the Duchy fared in the ten years since. Has the replacement for European Objective 1 funding been as successful for Cornwall, have our farmers and fishermen seen the benefits?
On today’s anniversary of the EU referendum, we asked Cornwall’s six MPs (in alphabetical order) – who don’t include a single Conservative MP among their number following 2024’s General Election – what their view is of the effects of Brexit on Cornwall.
Anna Gelderd, Labour MP for South East Cornwall
Back in 2016, around 58% of voters in South East Cornwall opted to leave the European Union, which is a few percentage points above the national average and 42% voted to remain. But quite clearly, there were many different opinions about the issue, which may have changed in the years since.
Ten years on, I believe that there was clearly a mandate for the United Kingdom to leave the European Union, which should be respected. But we also need to take a hard look at what has worked and what hasn’t, especially for us in South East Cornwall.
There are opportunities from Brexit, but we also need to consider whether, for certain policies, it would be better to harness opportunities from being closer to the EU.
All of this means that politicians need to be honest with the public about the situation we find ourselves in ten years after the referendum. Certain politicians have previously not been clear about the effects of Brexit and I am working in the best interests of South East Cornwall to be transparent about the issue.
As South East Cornwall’s MP, this means that I am speaking with local people here at home about what Brexit has delivered for them and raising the issue in Westminster too.
I’m looking at ways that we can unlock growth in South East Cornwall, through national funding like the £30 million Kernow Industrial Growth Fund, which is being used for our competitive industries like critical minerals. These targeted investments are brilliant for the future of our local economy.
Economic growth is something that is high on the agenda for local people, and I am looking at this practically, ten years on from the Brexit referendum.
Andrew George, Liberal Democrat MP for St Ives and the Isles of Scilly
I saw the Brexit referendum as a test of UK self-confidence. In the event we chose to demonstrate we didn’t have sufficient confidence in ourselves; that we weren’t leaders in Europe, but rule-takers and taken advantage of.
That’s not to say there could be NO benefits for the UK from leaving the EU. I acknowledged there was “potential” the UK could indeed “take back control” of the management of its fish stock and better protect our marine environment. However, even that hasn’t really materialised. Indeed, it’s worse. As now we’re outside the rooms where decisions are made and have less influence.
However, I’ve looked hard for benefits.
Clearly, all authoritative sources agree the UK economy has suffered; is 6-8% smaller than it would have been. Brexit has been a drag on UK trade and growth. It’s pushed up food prices, cut investment and therefore reduced job opportunities, especially for younger people, slowed wage growth and made key markets, including for our fish exporters, harder to reach with significantly more red tape and regulation to traverse.
But we have got rid of the EU passport and can proudly use our new blue passports. There’s also more jingoism, many more union jacks adorning all manner of government press conferences and ministerial photo opportunities.
It’s also resulted in the growth of “small boats” migration. Which ironically is something those who campaigned for Brexit now complain most bitterly about.
Along with others, I successfully campaigned in the 1990s for Cornwall and Scilly to receive the highest level of EU aid, as we were amongst the poorest regions in the EU and consistently ignored by Westminster.
By 2000 we succeeded and were eligible for what was then known as Objective 1 funding and which resulted in key investments, including the Cornwall University and at Falmouth harbour. Brexit brought decades of support for Cornwall to a close.
Promises by both the Conservatives and Labour that we’d receive the equivalence have proven to be hollow. We’re left cut adrift from those crucial investment funds, even though our relative poverty remains.
Though I respect that Brexit was a decision taken with the heart rather than head, I still cannot see how any of the promised benefits have materialised. It’s left us poorer and looking much weaker and less influential in the world.
Jayne Kirkham, Labour MP for Truro and Falmouth
Brexit divided the country in 2016 and the way it was negotiated has had significant economic consequences for Cornwall.
Over the years of Objective 1 and Structural Funding, our infrastructure and economy had come to rely on EU cash injections. Our railways benefited hugely, for example. The successful Falmouth branch line was saved and extended with EU funding and our mainline upcountry is now more frequent because of it.
It also funded seats of learning, like the Tremough campus and attractions like the Maritime Museum and Eden Project. European Social Funding also helped our businesses and people grow and get into work. We miss the money, obviously.
Our farmers and fishers were sold a pup. Brexit didn’t “take back control” of our waters thanks to Boris Johnson’s last minute Brexit deal hash up. And being out of the CAP meant a rocky and uncertain road for farmers with the loss of the basic payment, and we’re only now finally getting back to stability with this Government with long term Land Use and Farming Strategies and new, improved and well-funded Environmental Land Management Schemes that will be published this month.
It also caused havoc and expense for businesses trying to export our food, shellfish and pretty much everything else. Only now are we starting to right that with a new EU trade and veterinary deal.
Hasty Tory trade deals with Australia and New Zealand also did our farmers down. Even the Cornish Conservative DEFRA secretary admitted that afterwards. There have been new trade deals negotiated by this Government, but we are taking care to preserve our high standards and won’t let our food producers be undercut.
On the positive side, Brexit has enabled us to look again at the way we give out work. This Government is starting to prioritise British businesses for British contracts.
One of the motivating factors in choosing Brexit for many was concern over immigration. Ironic then how Boris Johnson panicked and flung open our borders when all the European construction and careworkers left, which led to a year where net immigration nearly hit a million; fourfold what it was when we were in the EU. Shabana Mahmood is having to tackle that and build a balanced immigration system and immigration has now dropped by 82%.
Also, ironically, although Brexit actually led to far more immigration to this country, it closed the doors of work and study for our young people to go to Europe. Erasmus was closed to them and Horizon was closed to our scientists. Fortunately this Government is starting to fix those things.
But perhaps most pernicious, more so than the financial tremor, was the way the Brexit vote split us as a society and hardened and coarsened our discourse. Families fell out and we are still polarised, quick to anger and less tolerant to this day. Politicians, the media, all of us had a part to play in that. And that is taking a lot longer to fix.
Noah Law, Labour MP for St Austell and Newquay
Ten years on, the honest answer is that Brexit has cost Cornwall far more than it has delivered.
Start with money. Before Brexit, Cornwall received around £100m a year from the European Union and, at various points, even more.
This funding built our physical and social infrastructure, backed our businesses and supported our universities for a quarter of a century. We all know the score on this: despite Boris Johnson’s promise that Cornwall would receive “not a penny less”, the replacement funding that followed came to barely half of what Europe provided and our region that ranked among the poorest in northern Europe was short-changed as a result.
There are signs that Government is willing to independently sustain and even reverse this.
The new £30m Kernow Industrial Growth Fund will invest over the next two years in the sectors where Cornwall leads, from critical minerals to renewable energy and marine innovation – and is permanent, recyclable capital that, in significant part, requires repaying to the taxpayer – a much more mature model for economic development.
Cornwall’s core local government funding is being permanently boosted by around £30m a year by the end of this Parliament and, with more than £220m coming to improve Cornwall’s roads, the forthcoming review of the Carr-Hill formula to improve GP funding in rural areas and our Government’s commitment to half the educational attainment gap in coastal areas – taken together, that is a serious uplift, and I make no apology for fighting for every penny of it.
But honesty demands we say it plainly: it still pales in comparison to what was on offer through European structural funding.
Then there is fishing, the industry held up above all others as the prize of leaving. The reality on our quaysides has been red tape, health certificates and perishable catches held up at the border.
A sanitary and phytosanitary agreement with the EU can help restore what was lost and, while I know well this may be more of a boost for processors and exporters than for catchers themselves, it is a vital step forward, though much more work needs to be done.
The announcement of the £360m Fishing and Coastal Growth Fund is a good first step, and Cornwall has been proactive in developing a plan that should allow our fishing industry to access this investment.
However, I am mindful that the status quo on access to our six to 12 nautical mile waters for foreign vessels, in place since Edward Heath’s Conservative Government took us into the Community in 1973, was promised away by Boris Johnson TWICE and never delivered because it was a false promise with absolutely no plan for negotiating its delivery.
That status quo is, nonetheless, unacceptable, and we must work to introduce measures that put environmental sustainability and, crucially, employment first, as you would expect of a Labour approach to industry. I continue discussions on the potential for technical measures with a bias towards our smaller, more sustainable Cornish fleets.
I want to be straight about the trade-offs, because pretending they do not exist is exactly the dishonesty that made Brexit so corrosive to public trust.
Closer cooperation with Europe carries real constraints and the agrifood deal now in prospect comes at the price of aligning with rules we no longer help write – although that does not necessarily mean that they are bad rules or that we have no way of influencing their application to British industry in practice.
That is precisely why my central concern is scrutiny: As we rebuild this relationship, a bad scenario sees the laws governing what our farmers spray on their crops and what standards apply at our borders could be set in Brussels and take effect here with Parliament reduced to the role of spectator.
The danger is not closer cooperation with Europe. The danger is closer cooperation conducted in the dark.
At the same time, it is a delusion to think that when we were members it was the voting behaviour of British MEPs that determined, say, the permitted use of a given pesticide. Those precise outcomes were shaped with or without our democratic presence. Well designed engagement with Europe’s regulatory systems can still allow country-specific concerns to be factored in.
On crop protection, for example, EU pesticide rules already operate through zonal authorisation, which allows national conditions to shape what is approved and where.
In time, the phasing in of dynamic alignment, even given the divergence between our two blocs since Brexit, could be a managed process that gives the UK real flexibility. The point is that we have to ask for that flexibility; set out our strategic stall and ask for what we want, rather than renegotiating our cooperation on a tit-for-tat, transactional basis.
Cornwall has already paid the price once for promises made without honesty. It should not pay it twice. Nor should it allow the architects of this disaster a free pass at the ballot box under a new, slightly more turquoise banner.
Ben Maguire, Liberal Democrat MP for North Cornwall
A decade on from what was arguably the biggest political change for Britain, a vote that divided the nation and left a wound that has yet to heal. It was a democratic decision, but one underpinned by so many lies that were not forcefully challenged at the time. Our Duchy voted with a 56.5% majority to leave.
We used to receive up to £100 million a year from the EU due to being designated to have Objective 1 finding needs. Post-Brexit, the Shared Prosperity Fund implemented by the government gave us £48 million a year, and now £15 million a year through the Kernow Industrial Growth Fund.
I was delighted to help secure this after my meeting with the Treasury Minister. Unfortunately, no Pride in Place funding was announced, despite my meetings with the then Minister for Devolution, Mattia Fanbuller MP. So post-Brexit, we are much worse off.
We received better roads, better broadband and better investments in businesses and our young people. Funded schemes included the Eden Project, A30 upgrades at Temple, and other healthcare and transport infrastructure programmes. It was these investments that were behind the scenes pushing our economy forward.
And many of our fishermen were completely taken advantage of by a false narrative of lies, instead of receiving control of quotas and the waters. The now Labour government had to make some sort of deal which was hard to negotiate, of course being on the “weaker” side of negotiations.
With the latest deal, the UK has agreed to a 12-year continuation of the current arrangement on fisheries, which gives EU countries’ trawlers access to fish in British waters. The existing quota is set at 75% of pre-Brexit levels. The Government has got to now work with our fishing industry to understand how it will be impacted by this extension. Many of my local fishermen feel totally betrayed by the lies of the Brexit campaign.
In terms of businesses, whilst facing huge rises in NICs and increases in the minimum wage, small businesses like Hannah Willow’s art business in my constituency face huge bureaucratic costs and administrative burdens.
Prior to Brexit, around 30% of her sales were to customers in the EU, and now that is 10% – all of this at a time when the US is playing havoc with trading markets and social security. Now, adding insult to injury, the de minimis threshold will be removed from July 1 this year. That means that items valued at under €150 entering the EU will no longer be exempt from customs duty and will incur a flat €3 fee per item.
Cornwall has enormous economic potential, but without better infrastructure and practical support for exporters and manufacturers, we risk businesses relocating elsewhere entirely. Economists estimate £90 billion of tax revenue has been lost since Brexit every year.
And our farmers have also suffered.
I recently met with many at the Royal Cornwall Show and heard about the huge pressures they are facing in this geopolitical environment: milk prices, possible permitting requirements, the Labour Government’s proposed taxing of family farms and the challenges they face more broadly.
With conflict in the Middle East disrupting global supply chains, alongside extreme weather events and the growing impacts of climate change, farmers are operating in an increasingly uncertain world. It’s clear we need a reset of farming policy to strengthen our food security and ensure we are not overly dependent on imports for our food supply.
The end of freedom of movement created labour shortages in parts of British agriculture that had long relied on seasonal EU workers, particularly in horticulture. The government responded by expanding the Seasonal Worker Visa Scheme, although farming organisations argued that the measures were introduced too slowly and did not fully meet labour demand.
Labour shortages contributed to difficulties in harvesting crops and processing agricultural products, although other factors such as rising costs and changes to farm support also affected production. It is a similar story in our carer workforce.
I believe that the UK’s trade agreements with Australia and New Zealand made by the Conservatives post-Brexit, expose British producers to greater import competition while delivering limited export opportunities. In the early years of the Australia agreement, Australian beef exports to the UK increased while British beef exports to Australia remained negligible. Animal welfare standards in the UK are high, but these poor deals have undercut our farmers with lower welfare imports.
Former Conservative Environment Secretary George Eustice, and MP in Cornwall, savaged the UK’s free trade deal with Australia and criticised Liz Truss’s role in negotiating it. Even though he helped secure the agreement, he told a Commons debate that it was “not actually a very good deal for the UK”, and that overall the UK “gave away far too much for far too little in return”. Well, I couldn’t agree more.
Finally, our young people have been denied the opportunity to work and study abroad – a benefit that previous generations enjoyed and took for granted. Conservative estimates of £90 billion per year in lost tax revenue is not just money lost for public services, but also means so many lost job opportunities for generations of our young people.
So, all in all, everyone has to decide for themselves how they view the last ten years of Brexit and how it has gone for the UK.
Of course, I am mostly focusing on Cornwall and not the UK as a whole, but I do believe it has hugely affected the Duchy. I will do everything I can to try and bring these problems to Parliament to see what we can do to help small businesses, our farming and food industries, and our small fishing boats.
There are still so many questions that remain to be answered.
Perran Moon, Labour MP for Camborne, Redruth and Hayle
No ifs, no buts: ten years on and it is crystal clear that Brexit has been an absolute disaster for Cornwall.
First, we lost our £100m Objective 1 EU funding that came straight to the council for the benefit of Cornwall. Despite the promises of Boris Johnson and others, the Shared Prosperity Fund simply didn’t come close to replacing it.
Then there were the claims that our farmers and fishers would be better off. Also, not true. Bureaucracy has increased for exporters, and the last Conservative Government signed trade deals with Australia and New Zealand that undercut British farmers.
But perhaps the strongest reason that was cited for voting for Brexit in Cornwall was immigration. Here again, the opposite of what those selling Brexit promised has actually happened. While it is true that immigration from the EU has fallen, the increase in immigration from outside the EU has dwarfed that reduction in EU immigration.
Before Brexit, net migration to the UK was around 200,000 a year, a figure that was still deemed controversial at the time.
Under this Labour Government it has fallen to less than 170,000. But in the years after Brexit, it soared to a peak of almost a million in 2023.
We have seen similar huge increases in the number of people claiming asylum in the UK since Brexit. The reason for this is that within the EU, member nations had the right to return asylum seekers to the first ‘safe country’ they came through.
However, because of Brexit the UK is considered a “third country” by the EU and we no longer have the right to send asylum seekers back the country of entry. Once again, for the first time since Brexit, this year the number of people trafficked across the Channel has fallen and the asylum backlog that had reached more than 170,000 under the Conservatives has now fallen to 64,000.
From holidaymakers to students to musicians, travel to the EU has ranged from very inconvenient to impossible.
While this Government is attempting to rebuild relations with the EU, rebuilding trust with our nearest and largest allies and trading partners takes time.
Perhaps the saddest thing of all is that people in Cornwall are at risk of being duped again by the same snake oil salesman that told us we’d be better off after Brexit. His claims of huge sums going back into the NHS have been exposed as complete nonsense.
Brexit has been the worst political act of self-harm in our lifetimes and we should not allow the same architects of Brexit to take even more control of our lives.