Crashing out of the EU will put Britain in recession, warns IMF

A NO Deal Brexit would plunge Britain into deep recession, the International Monetary Fund warned yesterday.

Amid hopes of a deal in Brussels, the IMF said its economic forecast for Britain assumed ‘there will be an agreement and the transition would be smooth’.

But it added that No Deal ‘would reduce the level of output in the UK by about 3 per cent over the long run’, wiping out its forecast of 1.2 per cent this year and 1.4 per cent next year. This would have a devastating impact on jobs, prosperity and the UK’s modest budget deficit.

If there is a negotiated Brexit, however, the UK will be doing better than most of the G7 richest countries.

It came as the Office for National Statistics said that unemployment rose from 3.8 per cent to 3.9 per cent in the three months to August. The number of those in work fell by 5 ,000 to 32.7million.