AFP, London :
IMF boss Christine Lagarde waded into Britain’s EU referendum battle on Friday, warning that quitting the European Union would be “pretty bad to very, very bad” for the UK economy.
The International Monetary Fund’s managing director issued a bleak outlook for Britain if it votes to leave the EU on June 23.
Lagarde, unveiling the global lender’s latest health check on the British economy, said a so-called Brexit could push the country into recession, echoing comments from Bank of England (BoE) governor Mark Carney.
The latest warning comes as Prime Minister David Cameron campaigns fervently to keep Britain in the 28-nation bloc.
With six weeks to go to the referendum, the Remain and Leave camps are neck-and-neck at 50 percent each, according to the What UK Thinks website’s average of the last six opinion polls.
Quitting the EU would result in a “protracted period of heightened uncertainty” for Britain, with a likely hit to output and “sizeable” long-term losses in income, according to the IMF’s report out Friday.
Global market reaction to a Leave vote is likely to be “negative and could be severe”, it added.
Presenting the report at the Treasury in central London, Lagarde said IMF experts had looked at a wide range of forecasts and scenario plans and done their own calculations.
“Frankly, in the very vast majority of what we have seen, we haven’t seen anything that is positive-it’s always been on the negative side,” she said.
“Depending on what hypotheticals you take, it’s going to be pretty bad to very, very bad,” she said on the impact of Brexit on the British economy.
She said GDP could be between 1.5 percent and 9.5 percent down on what it might otherwise be if Britain were to stay in the EU.
Leave supporters, which hit out against Carney for his and the BoE’s stance on Thursday, also criticised the IMF’s intervention.
“IMF has talked down the UK’s economy before and has been wrong in past forecasts about the UK and other countries,” read a tweet from the official Leave campaign.
IMF boss Christine Lagarde waded into Britain’s EU referendum battle on Friday, warning that quitting the European Union would be “pretty bad to very, very bad” for the UK economy.
The International Monetary Fund’s managing director issued a bleak outlook for Britain if it votes to leave the EU on June 23.
Lagarde, unveiling the global lender’s latest health check on the British economy, said a so-called Brexit could push the country into recession, echoing comments from Bank of England (BoE) governor Mark Carney.
The latest warning comes as Prime Minister David Cameron campaigns fervently to keep Britain in the 28-nation bloc.
With six weeks to go to the referendum, the Remain and Leave camps are neck-and-neck at 50 percent each, according to the What UK Thinks website’s average of the last six opinion polls.
Quitting the EU would result in a “protracted period of heightened uncertainty” for Britain, with a likely hit to output and “sizeable” long-term losses in income, according to the IMF’s report out Friday.
Global market reaction to a Leave vote is likely to be “negative and could be severe”, it added.
Presenting the report at the Treasury in central London, Lagarde said IMF experts had looked at a wide range of forecasts and scenario plans and done their own calculations.
“Frankly, in the very vast majority of what we have seen, we haven’t seen anything that is positive-it’s always been on the negative side,” she said.
“Depending on what hypotheticals you take, it’s going to be pretty bad to very, very bad,” she said on the impact of Brexit on the British economy.
She said GDP could be between 1.5 percent and 9.5 percent down on what it might otherwise be if Britain were to stay in the EU.
Leave supporters, which hit out against Carney for his and the BoE’s stance on Thursday, also criticised the IMF’s intervention.
“IMF has talked down the UK’s economy before and has been wrong in past forecasts about the UK and other countries,” read a tweet from the official Leave campaign.
