New export figures from the UK’s Office for National Statistics paint a stark picture of the reality of post-Brexit trade. They show how UK exports collapsed to the EU’s largest markets of Germany, France, Italy and Spain.

The anticipated increase in trade beyond Europe post-Brexit also failed to materialise. Goods and services exports to the USA and China have slumped as well.

Combined UK exports to Germany have declined from £56.3bn in 2019 – the year before the UK left the EU – to £47.3bn in 2021.

Total exports of goods and services to France were £40.3bn in 2019 and fell to £32.3bn last year.

Total exports to Italy stood at £17.8bn in 2019 and slumped to £14.2bn in 2021. For Spain, before Brexit combined good and services exports were £19.4bn in 2019, and the 2021 outcome was £13.2bn.

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UK exports to the United States have held up better. The ONS counted £133.1bn of goods and services exports in 2021 compared with £141.4bn in 2019.

In pre-Brexit 2019, the UK exported £35.9bn of goods and services to China. In 2021, that tumbled to £27.5bn.

David Jinks, head of consumer research at logistics firm ParcelHero, commented: “Britain’s exporters of goods, from food to cars, have all suffered from the impact of the poorly negotiated Brexit trade agreement and increased red tape and duties. The same applies to services, from finance to computing, which now fall outside the regulated EU services market.

“Perhaps most disappointingly, these latest results reveal Britain failed to successfully transition away from the EU to other overseas markets – one of the positive outcomes promised by Brexiteers. Looking at two vital export markets beyond the EU, the numbers also tumbled.

“Perhaps the situation is summed up best by looking at the UK’s exports to the whole of the EU. In 2019, they stood at a healthy £298bn. By 2021, they had slumped by £30bn to £268bn, but even that was a huge lift from the £259bn they had tumbled to in 2020, in the immediate aftermath of Brexit.”

Jinks added: ‘With the shadow of the Northern Ireland Protocol bill hanging over the next stage of post-Brexit discussions, it’s a concerning situation that Kemi Badenoch, the incoming Secretary of State for International Trade, has inherited.”