Osborne will pay dearly for this desperate threat

WIN or lose next week, it is hard to see how George Osborne can survive the blow he has inflicted on Tory unity and his own credibility as Chancellor.

Indeed, his threat to punish voters with swingeing tax rises and spending cuts if they decide to pull out of the EU is an act of utter desperation.

It is also deeply irresponsible of him to talk Britain down – ludicrously predicting ‘decades’ of woe if we withdraw. It is as if he is willing investors to lose confidence in our country so that he can point to a downturn in the financial markets as evidence that we should vote Remain. So how frustrating it must be for Mr Osborne that the markets stubbornly refuse to be alarmed by the prospect of Brexit.

Despite his prophecies of doom, shares are performing no worse than in February, while the pound follows its usual pattern of ups and downs (yesterday, it closed up against the dollar).

Meanwhile, firms continue to recruit in Britain – something they would never do if they feared economic Armageddon – with yesterday’s figures showing employment at an all-time high. No wonder that within hours of Mr Osborne’s threat of an emergency Budget, 65 outraged Tory MPs had signed a statement saying his position would be ‘untenable’ if he tried to push the package through – with one calling for him to resign now.

After all, this is a Chancellor who went into last year’s election promising not to increase income tax, National Insurance or VAT. There was no mention in his manifesto that his cast- iron pledge was conditional on a vote to Remain.

Yet now he stands arm in arm with Labour’s Alistair Darling – the man he has accused for nine years of bringing Britain to its knees – threatening to increase tax and slash funding of the NHS and other public services if voters refuse to do his bidding.

How typical of Mr Osborne that just about the only budget he refuses to touch is his sacred cow of overseas aid – that monstrous subsidy from hardworking Britons to foreign despots and fraudsters.

But then the Chancellor is a supreme exemplar of the political class, never having held a job in the real world since he entered the Westminster bubble at 23.

Indeed, he often appears to have more in common with Labour spinmeister Lord Mandelson, his fellow architect of Project Fear, than with voters.

Who but such a man could make so light of public concerns about mass immigration, blithely declaring when asked if there was any prospect of changing the EU’s free movement rules: ‘The short answer is No’?

Yes, Mr Osborne deserves some credit for keeping the economy moving, while his achievements on job creation are impressive.

But let’s face it, his record as a forecaster is abysmal. In 2010, he said he would balance the books by 2015. In fact, public borrowing in 2014/15 was a monstrous £91.7billion.

Again and again he, like Lord Darling before him, has had to revise his forecasts – often just weeks after announcing them.

In these times of rapid change, in which the EU’s share of global trade has been plummeting, how can he claim to be able to predict decades ahead?

True, he can rely on tame businessmen to echo his fears about Brexit (often with a promise of a mention in the honours list to encourage their cooperation).

But for every Warren East of Rolls-Royce (or will it be Sir Warren?) who backs Remain, there’s a huge exporter such as Sir James Dyson or Lord Bamford of JCB, who thinks we will prosper if we pull out.

That’s not to mention tens of thousands of small firms – the backbone of our economy – which are bound by every statist regulation spewing from Brussels even if they do no trade outside the UK.

But it’s the sheer, arrogant ineptitude of the Chancellor’s Project Fear that rankles most.

As a supposed master of strategy, he must surely have known his hysterical threat of a punitive Budget would sow bitter ill-feeling in his party, making reconciliation after the vote ever harder to achieve.

And there’s an ominous message for his cheerleader, the Prime Minister, too. It will not have escaped Mr Cameron’s notice that 65 irate Tories signed yesterday’s protest letter, while only 50 MPs are required to trigger a leadership election.

If that happens, he will have his Chancellor to thank.