A Brexit may shrink UK economy equivalent to £4,300 per household 

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Leaving the European Union would take a severe financial toll on British families, Treasury officials warned on 18 April.

In a 200-page official analysis, the Treasury forecasts that a vote for Brexit in June would see Britain’s economy shrink by 6% by 2030, taking a toll equivalent to £4,300 per household.

The report will take aim at Vote Leave’s claim that an independent Britain could negotiate a beneficial trade deal with the EU, similar to that which currently exists with Canada.

Instead, the Treasury will assert that no independent trade agreement could match the current quota-free, no-tariff deal that Britain enjoys as an EU member. Under “all plausible alternatives”, Britain would be closing off economic avenues “not just with Europe but, crucially, with the rest of the world”, Chancellor George Osborne writes in The Times.

“Leave the EU, and the facts are: Britain would be permanently poorer. Britain’s families would be permanently poorer too,” he says. “The conclusion is clear: for Britain’s economy and for families, leaving the EU would be the most extraordinary self-inflicted wound.”

However, the conclusion is far from clear to Brexiters, who are already writing off the Chancellor’s warning as another example of doom-mongering from ‘Project Fear’.

The Treasury’s report will certainly face pushback on its figure of a 6% knock to the economy. Previous analyses have put the predicted shrinkage anywhere between 2,25% and 3,9%.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, the Conservative MP and Vote Leave campaigner, John Redwood, repeated accusations made yesterday that the Treasury’s projections were “completely worthless”.

“We want our money back to spend on our priorities,” the Eurosceptic told the programme, accusing the Treasury report of adding to a “conspiracy” to mask the benefits of leaving the EU.

Source: Eureporter

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