The price of alcohol and fuel could rise again as part of a new £30bn emergency budget, should Britain opt to leave the European Union next week.
Chancellor George Osborne has threatened a new round of tax rises and cuts to frontline services, including the police, just days before the Brexit vote on 23 June.
Writing in The Times ahead of a speech later today in which he will join forces with former Labour Chancellor Lord Darling, Osborne said that leaving the EU would lead to a “profound economic shock that would hit the economy and could tip Britain back into recession”.
“We know all too well what happens when Britain loses control of its public finances.
“We’re agreed that a vote to leave risks doing the same thing to Britain all over again,” he said.
The emergency budget includes a 2p rise in the basic rate of income tax and a 3p rise in the higher rate as well as duty increases on alcohol and fuel, while spending on the police, transport and local government could take a 5% cut.
The measures - £15bn of tax rises and £15bn of cuts - are based on the Institute for Fiscal Studies’ (IFS) predictions about the economic impact of a vote to leave from lower trade, investment, and tax receipts.
The IFS has said such an outcome could trigger between an extra one to two years of austerity measures.
The Vote Leave campaign dismissed the claims as “hysterical prophecies of doom”.
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