The cost of a typical family holiday in Europe will rise by £230 if the United Kingdom votes to leave the EU, David Cameron claims.
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“The British people must ask themselves this question: can we knowingly vote for a recession?”
George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, said on Monday that a United Kingdom exit from the European Union would be trigger a year-long recession that would see Britain’s GDP drop by as much as 6 percent.
The chancellor was flanked by Prime Minister David Cameron.
“We’ve had opinions from all sorts of people”.
Treasury sources pointed out that Britain could be left in economic limbo for up to a decade as a new deal with the European Union did not have to be concluded during the two-year post-Brexit “divorce” period.
Hundreds of staff crowded into the company’s atrium packed on seating in the entrance and lining two tiers of balconies overhead to listen intently to the two most powerful men in Britain.
A hush sounded over the audience as both men arrived to launch speeches on their fears for Brexit and exclusively reveal the document “HM Treasury analysis: the immediate economic impact of leaving the EU”.
Under a “severe shock scenario”, where Britain would leave the Single Market and default to World Trade Organisation rules, GDP would be 6 per cent lower after two years and there would be a further increase in inflation, with a hit to house price growth of 18 per cent.
Mr Duncan Smith said he was “deeply disappointed” with Business Secretary Sajid Javid for backing the Treasury after privately telling him and others that he wanted the United Kingdom to leave the EU.
Britain becoming less open to trade and investment from overseas, uncertainty caused by the Leave vote, and volatility in the financial markets are cited as the causes behind the drop.
“The shock to our economy after leaving Europe would tip the country into recession”.
“This could be, for the first time in history, a recession brought on ourselves”.
According to the BBC, Chancellor George Osborne says in a Treasury study the United Kingdom would suffer an “immediate and profound” economic shock of its own making in the event of a Brexit. “We are not going to be able to have a say”.
The loss for more expensive homes would be even higher, he said.
“Following predictions of world war, we now have a forecast recession equating to that of the Great Depression should we leave”.
What the Treasury is doing is what it calls scenario analysis, which is taking what would happen if we stayed in the European Union as a base-line and then considering what the impact would be were we to leave.
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Extracts of the Treasury analysis already published suggest the pound would fall 12 per cent after a vote to leave, pushing up annual household shopping bills by £220 (€284) over the same period. “Under all scenarios the economy shrinks, the value of the pound falls, inflation rises, unemployment rises, wages are hit, and as a result – government borrowing goes up”. We did better than ever before.
