Kevin Duffy, managing director at Mortgageforce, has condemned the Chancellor and his Treasury report claiming a Brexit would scupper the UK’s economy, calling it “lies, damn lies and statistics”.
Kevin Duffy, managing director at Mortgageforce, has condemned the Chancellor and his Treasury report claiming a Brexit would scupper the UK’s economy, calling it “lies, damn lies and statistics”.
Duffy, a vocal and long-time mortgage industry stalwart, came out fighting against today’s flurry of anti-Brexit predictions from the Treasury claim that the economy will be 6% smaller in 2030 than it might otherwise have been if Britain hits its economic growth targets over 15 years and the population rises by the rate forecast by the Office for National Statistics.
Duffy said: "Predictably our alleged Prime Minister elect chooses now to come out from behind the sofa after his recent sick-bucket showing on Budget day.
“What a complete croc. Lies, damn lies and statistics.
“Just when are some of this great nation's supposed leaders going to grow a pair and accept that the unelected Brussels elite and the EU have been royally having us all over for years now.
“Come on Boris [Johnson] and [Ian] Botham, let's hit these doom mongers and propagandists for six.”
Multiple politicians, media commentators and industry experts have criticised the Treasury’s forecast that Brexit would leave Britain “permanently poorer” as a fiction.
Oxford Economics recently published forecasts that suggested the UK economy would be just 3.9% worse off by 2030 if the country leaves the EU; PWC and the CBI research suggested that the impact would be just 3.5% lower GDP growth by the same year.
The Daily Mail has reported that Boris Johnson, one of the Leave Campaign’s most notorious supporters, told audiences in Manchester, Leeds and Newcastle upon Tyne this weekend that the claim a Brexit would stymie UK trade abroad was “b******s”.
He said: “The whole endless cacophony of warnings is losing credibility. People are losing patience with it.
“The PM was very clear before the whole campaign began that Britain could have a great future outside the EU. He said we would have absolutely no difficulty trading around the world.
“Now there is this idea that trade is entirely controlled by governments; that no trade takes place unless governments agree with each other.
“Well, b******s. It's nothing to do with governments. It's to do with businesses, people and enterprises deciding they have something to buy or sell.
“This will accelerate as a result of getting rid of so much bureaucracy and political interference.”
In a statement released today Jonathan Portes, senior fellow at the UK in a Changing Europe programme and principal research fellow at NIESR, said the assumption that Brexit significantly reduces the UK's openness to trade and investment, resulting in a significant reduction in UK productivity performance was “obviously open to question”.
And he added: “One important omission in the Treasury analysis is modelling the impact of changes to UK immigration policy post-Brexit.
“The Treasury assumes that immigration continues to evolve in line with ONS forecasts. This means that it assumes both that government policy - to reduce immigration to the tens of thousands - is ineffective, and that Brexit makes no difference either to the numbers or the skills mix.
“Given the centrality of immigration and free movement in the political debate on Brexit, this is difficult to understand.
“There is a strong consensus among UK economists that free movement has been beneficial to the UK economy and public finances, as outlined by the Bank of England, but simply ignoring this issue seems like a major omission."
Writing in his blog today Tony Ward, chief executive of Clayton Euro Risk, concludes: “My view is that the great British public is starting to feel election fatigue – and we still have two months to go. My argument that politicians and commentators are just confusing us further with unsubstantiated statistics and counter arguments sadly seems to be coming to the fore.
Rather than infighting we need decisive messages from our leaders and politicians to get through this period, not stone-throwing and tantrums. That and a strong unambiguous decision on 23 June – be it in or out. I’m voting for a return to normality.”
