British consumers have been buoying up the economy by spending.
Retail sales had dropped by nearly 1% in June amidst the uncertainty of the referendum that month.
But shoppers took economists by surprise in July when sales went up by 1.4% that month. The rise was much greater than the 0.2% which analysts had predicted.
The figures from the Office for National Statistics are the first official view of consumer behaviour since the referendum.
Many analysts have said that, so far at least, the voters’ majority decision to depart from the EU has not had any major impact on the UK economy.