Brits will have to pay more for the iPhone 7 because Brexit was a terrible idea

On the June 23, Britain voted to leave the European Union. In the short time that has followed, the British Pound fell off a cliff and has now reached the lowest levels in almost thirty years. You can see how drastic a drop this has been below.

This is having a knock-on effect on the price of consumer technology, with Dell laptops, HTC VR headsets, and OnePlus phones all costing more. The latest iPhone will be no exception.

While the cheapest iPhone 6s cost £539 last year, the base iPhone 7 model is now listed on Apple’s website for £599 – or a full £60 ($80) more.

When you look at the cheapest Plus models, the difference is even more stark – from £619 for the iPhone 6s Plus, to £719 for the iPhone 7 Plus. That’s £100 ($133) extra.

It’s not just iPhones that have gotten more expensive, either. Apple has raised prices on a number of its products in response to the collapsed Pound. The Apple Pencil has gone up £20, from £79 to £99. The Sport Band for the Apple Watch is similarly £10 more expensive, having gone from £39 to £49.

While the iPad Pro got a price cut in the US, making it less expensive than the iPhone 6s Plus, the reverse happened in the UK, with the 32GB 9.7-inch model having gone up £50 from £499 to £549. It’s a similar story on the 12.9-inch base model, which has soared from £679 to £729.

In the run up to the vote, many economists and manufacturers predicted that Brexit would lead to higher prices. These predictions were laughably dismissed by the leave campaign as being part of a scaremongering campaign called “Project Fear”. But as the evidence shows, they were part of “Project Reality”.

Of course, this is one of the milder consequences of the disastrous vote; the UK has lost its treasured Standard & Poors AAA credit rating, there has been a surge in racist violence, and the international reputation of the UK has been irreparably tarnished. Sadly, it seems, there will be no takebacks or second referendum.