No-deal Brexit would hit economy harder than Covid, OBR warns

Watchdog predicts that failure to reach trade agreement will damage sectors which are surviving pandemic

Boris Johnson returns to Number 10, Downing Street following the weekly Cabinet meeting.
(Image credit: Leon Neal/Getty Images)

A no-deal Brexit would strike a devastating blow to parts of the UK economy spared the worst of the coronavirus crisis and result in hundreds of thousands of job losses, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) has predicted.

The economy is already expected to contract by a total of 11.3% this year - the “largest fall in 300 years”, says Politico’s Ian Dunt. But a failure to reach a post-Brexit trade agreement with the EU could reduce GDP by a further 2% next year on top of the financial damage wrought by the pandemic, according to a newly published OBR report.

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