Work together to sort out this mess

THERE was a big hole in Philip Hammond’s unjustifiably cheery spring statement.

It wasn’t the size of the deficit, it was Brexit, which merited only two sentences but will continue to cost the UK £37billion in divorce payments and we will continue paying pension contributions for Brussels staff until 2064.

That means paying the pensions of people who have not started working yet.

But all of Brexit is madness. The Office for Budget Responsibility warn that it is “impossible” to quantify the full effect of Brexit on the public finances.

We know from the Government’s own modelling, and that of the Scottish Government, that whatever the outcome of the divorce, the UK economy will suffer in a two to eight per cent fall in GDP over the next 15 years.

According to financial watchdogs the OBR, we are in for a decade of flat growth, with an even risk of a recession, before the impact of Brexit is even taken into account.

Scotland, where anaemic growth is half that of the UK economy, is in dire straits itself.

The gravity of the economic situation, topped with one of the gravest diplomatic stand-offs since the Falklands War, demands that governments and politicians work together.

There is no sign of that as Theresa May and Nicola Sturgeon prepare for a frosty meeting in London today. But if they were bigger politicians, there ought to be.