The Brexit bounce making a mockery of George Osborne’s Project Fear

We are now just two months away from the second anniversary of the Brexit vote and therefore in a position to judge the apocalyptic forecast made by the Treasury in May 2016 in the run-up to the vote. In a paper signed off by George Osborne, which neither the former chancellor nor anyone else who has made a grim prognosis for Britain’s departure from the EU should be allowed to forget, the finest minds in the Treasury came up with two scenarios for the aftermath of a vote to leave the EU. In the ‘shock’ scenario, GDP would be 3.6 per cent lower after two years (compared with if the country had voted to remain), the pound would fall by 12 per cent and unemployment would rise by 520,000. In the ‘severe shock’ scenario GDP would be six per cent lower, the pound would fall by 15 per cent and  unemployment would rise by 820,000.