Post-Brexit UK austerity budget warning

An emergency austerity budget featuring £30bn (€38bn) worth of tax rises and spending cuts would be needed within a couple months of a vote for Brexit in order to stop Britain plunging into an “economic tailspin”, chancellor George Osborne has warned.

With just seven days to go before the June 23 referendum, Osborne joined his Labour predecessor Alistair Darling to warn that the government might have to hike the basic rate of income tax by 2p to 22% and raise the higher rate by 3p to 43% to fill the “black hole” in the public finances which ministers expect if Britain pulls out of the EU.

Furious pro-Brexit Tories branded the idea a “punishment budget” and warned they would vote to block it. Some 57 Conservative MPs signed a statement saying the chancellor’s position would be “untenable” if he tried to push the package through — with one backbencher calling for Osborne to resign now.