Jamie Oliver's closing restaurants and 10 other things that have been blamed on Brexit

Jamie Oliver has announced the closure of six Jamie’s Italian restaurants, and Brexit, along with tough trading, has been blamed.

Executives claimed the pound’s decreased value since Britain announced its EU split made buying Italian ingredients more expensive. Of course, this isn’t the first time Brexit has been deemed to be the root of a problem though.

Here’s 10 other things that have been blamed on Brexit.

1. Toblerones getting smaller

Toblerone’s triangles shrunk in stature last year, and it was a scandal which many blamed on Britain’s break from the EU.

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The Swiss chocolate’s distinctive bars lost about 10% of their weight in the change and, like Jamie’s Italian, rising ingredient costs were given the blame.

2. Rising Irish citizenship

Data from the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade showed up to October 2016 applications for Irish passports from Great Britain were up 42% on last year. In Northern Ireland applications were up 27%.The sharp rise in applications have been blamed on people trying to hold on to their EU citizenship after the Brexit vote – and those applying have made no secret of why they are doing it.

3. A rise in hate crime

The Metropolitan Police said there was a “horrible spike” in hate crimes following Britain’s vote to leave and Britain’s most senior police officer said the two developments were at least partly linked.

“We couldn’t say it was absolutely down to Brexit, although there was obviously a spike after it,” Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe told a hearing in London’s City Hall in September. “Some of them were attributed to it because of what was said at the time. We could attribute that, and eastern Europeans were particularly targeted within the race-hate crime (category). So there certainly was a spike related to it.”

4. Billions of pounds in UK investment

A report from the Centre for Economics and Business Research claimed in November Brexit had led to delayed or cancelled business investments in the UK worth more than £64 billion.The assessment of 1,000 businesses found 42% had stalled or backed out of investment deals due to Brexit-related factors.

5. The price of Walkers crisps

In Autumn 2016 Walkers were initially chastised for allegedly blaming Brexit on the 10% price rise on their standard and grab bag bags of crisps – despite growing their potatoes in Britain.The company later dismissed claims they had blamed Brexit however, stating “fluctuating foreign exchange rates” meant the oils and packaging materials they imported had risen in price.

6. Ruining Football Manager

In keeping with the times, Football Manager 2017 added a Brexit feature. The feature plays out what could happen to football depending on how severely Britain cuts its ties with the EU, with a “hard Brexit” meaning players from the EU have to apply for work permits. The result of the Brexit feature is random, but it has made more than one or two players rather unhappy.

7. The great Tesco-Unilever price war

The price of Marmite was a high-profile scandal blamed on Brexit – but its owner Unilever’s decision to hike prices by 10% across-the-board affected a myriad of supermarket items.

The yeast extract spread along with other favourites like Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and Pot Noodles were even taken off Tesco’s shelves temporarily as the row raged on.

In the end the products returned but their prices have risen and it is Brexit and Britain’s weakened pound that was once again blamed for it all.

8. A silent death for Britain’s technology sector

A survey from Magister Advisors of the UK’s fastest growing technology companies concluded post-Brexit uncertainty was “silently killing” Britain’s tech companies – costing “an incalculable” number of jobs.The firm claimed the effects were immediate – citing one software company choosing to to create 100 engineering jobs in Germany rather than London just one day after the referendum.

9. Lego upping costs

The plummeted value of the pound vote has hit Denmark’s world famous toy blocks too.Prices have risen by an average of 5% across the Lego range with “currency fluctuations” blamed in the wake of Brexit.

10. Literally anything the public wants to blame Brexit on

Although many things Brexit has been blamed for may have a reasoned argument to them, it’s also become a tongue-in-cheek buzzword for some members of the public looking for something to blame.

For example there’s this mess this dog made…

Or this bloke’s flight delay.

Well, Donald Trump took some blame too. But that’s a list for another time…