Thread by @uk_domain_names

Time for a brief chat about an 8% hit to GDP, which is what is forecast under a no deal scenario.

You might think "Hmm, that means I will lose 8% of my income". Sounds bad, for sure, but potentially "survivable" (to use Liam Fox's expression from yesterday).

But it doesn't work like that. The pain's not evenly distributed. What happens in practice is some firms weather the storm just fine, maybe because they're in industries that aren't affected to the changing situation, aren't connected to the EU even at one- or two- removes, etc.

Other firms take a massive hit. The downturn of 2008/2009 represented about a 4% drop in GDP, and saw millions of people out of work and thousands and thousands of businesses go bankrupt. So imagine what twice that damage would look like.

Amongst the first to go will be the car companies. All have warned without exception that their business model is literally unsustainable with the loss of just-in-time production and tariffs that would arise from "no deal" Brexit. We can wave goodbye to a huge chunk of the

£82 billion the industry generates & the 850,000 people who are employed directly or indirectly in the sector. Does that mean every last one of them will go? No. But it will be devastating, truly devastating. Consider how many people used to work in mining, and how many do today.

Then think of the ripple effects. As people lose their jobs and livelihoods, they drastically cut spending on anything other than the bare essentials, and pare those back too. So gyms, hairdressers, beauty salons, plumbers, builders, etc. etc. all start to feel the repercussions.

And with much less money to spend, people will shop less. The high street is already on its knees from crippling business rates and the rise of online shopping. A no deal Brexit would finish off huge numbers of retailers, many of them household names.

Imagine the effects, spreading out like ripples after you toss a huge stone into a pond. That's how you get the 8% drop. That's why a no deal Brexit will be catastrophic on a scale nobody has experienced before.

But that's from the people's view. From the Government perspective, it's equally if not more terrifying. We're a rich nation, but we run our finances very close to the edge (in simple terms, the credit card's always maxed out). That's why the 2008/9 financial crisis brought a

decade of austerity that we have yet to fully shake the effects of. Under a no deal Brexit, the Government would lose a huge chunk of revenue (less income tax, VAT etc.) so it would be austerity, austerity, austerity as far as the eye can see, for decades.