IMF chief Christine Lagarde said she had "not seen anything that's positive" about Brexit and warned it was likely to "lead to a technical recession".
International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde has branded a vote for Britain to leave the EU "pretty bad, to very, very bad".
Speaking today Lagarde said she had "not seen anything that's positive" about Brexit and warned it was likely to "lead to a technical recession" – echoing the comments back by Bank of England governor Mark Carney yesterday.
In a report on the UK economy the IMF said a leave vote could have a "negative and substantial effect" and could in turn result in a sharp rise in interest rates which would have significant knock-on consequences on the UK’s economy.
She told a briefing where Chancellor George Osborne was present earlier today: “I don't think that in the last six months I have visited a country anywhere in the world where I have not been asked 'what will be the economic consequences of Brexit?’"
The BBC reported that Lord Lamont, a former Chancellor of the Exchequer, said: "This daily avalanche of institutional propaganda is becoming ludicrous and pitiful. Important institutions are being politicised and used to make blood-curdling forecasts.
"There are plenty of respected individual economists, plenty of respected professional investors, and plenty of entrepreneurs who take a very different view from Christine Lagarde and who have probably been better at foreseeing the future than the IMF."
