Thursday December 30th 2021
Government advises against B-word
British officials should avoid “Brexit” term
The British people do not necessarily associate the evil B-word with the expression “Brexit”. Until now. Because the government’s new language guide recommends that employees in the UK authorities stop using the word if possible.
Don’t mention the Brexit – please don’t mention the Brexit. In order to finally leave the tiresome issue of leaving the EU behind, British government employees should avoid the term as much as possible. That emerges from a government advisor on language. “You can use the term ‘Brexit’ to create the historical context, but it is better to use dates that are as accurate as possible,” said several British media outlets.
Brexit has had a significant impact on the UK economy and continues to cause problems even after a year. The United Kingdom left the EU at the end of January 2020 and also left the EU customs union and the internal market on January 1, 2021. Many companies are now lacking workers due to a shortage of EU employees, but they have to shoulder higher costs due to increased customs and transport fees.
More expensive and time-consuming: Hardly a day goes by without one industry making its Brexit worries public. First and foremost, the British labor market will notice it. There are well over a million vacancies there. The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) has come to the conclusion that leaving the EU will reduce gross domestic product (GDP) by four percent. Broken down, this means, according to Ulrich Hoppe, head of the German-British Chamber of Commerce in London, that every Briton has to work an extra year.
With such an accumulation of negative consequences, it is not surprising that government officials should rather not rely on the “Brexit” term when communicating with the population. As an alternative, the government adviser suggests using “December 31, 2020” instead of the B-word. For formulations that revolve around the time of the negotiations and the subsequent transition phase, “before December 31, 2020” should be used, and for all references to the time since Brexit, “after January 1, 2021” should be used.