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Recent figures published by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) showed that UK exports were 12 percent below 2019 levels. Meanwhile, other developed economies had already seen exports exceed pre-pandemic averages by several percentage points.

This lack of recovery from the coronavirus pandemic compared with other, similar economies was largely attributed to the UK’s withdrawal from the EU.

However, Julian Jessop, a former Treasury economist and fellow at the Institute of Economic Affairs, argued that blaming the hit to trade solely on Brexit did not explain certain “anomalies” in the latest figures.

Instead, there may be “other important factors at play than just Brexit” affecting the UK’s recovery.

It comes at a time when the pandemic has caused global supply issues, shortages and record inflation – compounded by the disruption to the markets caused by the war in Ukraine.

But Mr Jessop and the Office for National Statistics (ONS) both agree that Brexit had in fact meant that the UK was more resilient to global shocks in the supply chain than other economies.

The independent economist did not deny that Brexit had been a factor in the UK’s slow recovery, stating that the OBR’s latest economic report was “broadly consistent” with its assumption that Brexit would reduce international trade by around 15 percent.

He said that it was “reasonable to assume that Brexit has reduced both exports and imports.

“You do not have to be a trained economist to grasp that an increase in the barriers to trade is likely to mean that there will be less of it.

“Nonetheless, the usual suspects have jumped to the conclusion that the entirety of the recent fall in trade is due to Brexit, that this is permanent,” Mr Jessop added, but said that the OBR had “not gone this far”.

He noted that the OBR report had thrown up a number of “anomalies”, including that the UK’s exports to the EU and the rest of the world had fallen by similar amounts – despite the latter not obviously being affected by Brexit.

Similarly, the OBR found that UK imports from the EU have fallen more than exports to the EU – “the opposite of what most people had expected”.

Given these inconsistencies with the Brexit-blaming “narrative”, Mr Jessop said that the OBR had “quite rightly” concluded that the impact of Brexit on UK trade remained “uncertain”.

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He added: “What Brexit does is makes it more expensive to do trade with the EU. That has to be a negative, because anything that makes something more costly diverts activity for that reason.”

A fall in the amount of imports from other countries might be in part explained by a change towards sourcing materials from the domestic supply chain.

Recent findings published by the Office of National Statistics (ONS) show that changes to how UK businesses were sourcing the materials they needed after Brexit may have made the country “more resilient to global supply chain disruption”.

The ONS also estimated that the UK had a “relative lack of dependence on imported immediate inputs for production” – the necessary resources needed to make a product.

Mr Jessop commented that this was “a silver lining of Brexit” for UK businesses, telling Express.co.uk: “Because trade has been harder for a while, people have found alternative domestic sources for good.

“When an external shock comes along, even if it’s nothing to do with Brexit […] then the UK is actually in a better position because of the fact we’re less dependent on these international supply chains than we were.”

However, this made UK businesses susceptible to shocks in the domestic market, which Mr Jessop indicated could lead to further shortages down the line.

He commented: “Globalisation is good, because if you’ve got supply chains connected to lots of other different countries, you’ve got diversity of supply there that you don’t necessarily have if you’re sourcing all your goods from your home country.”

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