The cost of a hard Brexit from the European Union for every man, woman and child in West Yorkshire has been revealed.
A hard Brexit - leaving the EU, the single market and the customs union - would cost every person in the county £559 per year.
That's double the cost of a soft Brexit, where the UK would retain some EU free trade.
The figure comes from a study by the independent German foundation group Bertelsmann Stiftung, which has calculated the economic impact on Brexit on regions of the UK.
A hard Brexit means the UK would not only leave the EU but also the single market and the customs union. This means Britain would no longer have a free trade agreement for goods and services with other EU countries, although the UK would then be able to sign free trade deals with other countries.
In a soft Brexit the UK would retain its free trade deal with other EU countries, continue to make financial contributions to the EU and potentially allow the free movement of people.
The policy paper found that the cost of a soft Brexit would see a loss of around £316 a head in West Yorkshire – a total of £723.3million a year.
A hard Brexit would cost almost twice as much – £559 a head, or £1.3billion each year.
The situation is mirrored across the rest of the UK.
The paper estimates a hard Brexit would cost the UK a total of £49.3billion a year – 1.8 times higher than the £27.8billion cost of a soft Brexit.
The report said: “Brexit – hard or soft – is likely to have a significant, yet regionally varying, impact on welfare.
“We find that, unsurprisingly, the UK would lose out the most from Brexit.”
The report also found that countries situated closer to the UK would face a greater economic loss than those further away.
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Brexit will also impact more widely on Europe overall, with the policy paper finding that “Brexit notably dampens growth potential not just in the UK but across the EU.”
This is because, the report claims, any form of Brexit – regardless of whether hard or soft – will affect key sources of growth and competition and exert negative costs on Europe economies.
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