The death of Queen Elizabeth II and the period of national mourning that followed have been the latest blow to Britain’s already struggling economy, but economists and analysts say that there are glimmers of hope.
Britain is at a watershed moment. The country has just completed a 10-day period of mourning, concluding with country-wide shutdowns during a public holiday to mark the late monarch’s funeral. Her death came just two days after a new prime minister, Liz Truss, took office, after the last one was ousted by his own party for unbecoming behavior, while the U.K. faces a cost-of-living crisis unlike anything the nation has seen in decades. Inflation has soared to the highest levels since the 1980s, at around 10%, and the nation faces an energy crisis due to dwindling Russian energy exports to Europe. The British pound has been languishing around a nearly 37-year low against the dollar. And economic growth—the U.K. has now fallen behind India, a former British colony, becoming the world’s sixth largest economy and its central bank, the Bank of England, has warned that it risks falling into a recession that could last well into 2024. Read more here.