Leave campaigner Michael Gove has refuted government claims that Brexit vote would generate a recession
Justice secretary Michael Gove has hit back at government reports which have claimed a vote to leave the EU would generate a recession.
Speaking to The Sunday Telegraph, Gove sought to dismiss warnings from the Treasury, which have also included suggestions that households could be up to £4,300 a year worse off.
“There are economic risks if we leave, economic risks if we remain. I don't think there will be a recession as a result of a vote to leave,” Gove said.
“I can't foretell the future, but I don't believe that the act of leaving the European Union would make our economic position worse, I think it would make it better.”
Read More: IMF: Brexit could spark recession and jump in unemployment
It comes days after Gove told a BBC Question Time audience that Brexit would be “win-win” for the UK's economy, and would see new trade deals generating hundreds of thousands of new jobs.
However, also writing in the Sunday Telegraph, Prime Minister David Cameron maintained that a recession would be “probable”, adding that the UK would be left “permanently poorer in every sense”.
“It is simply common sense that if we left, trade would be damaged, and investment in Britain would suffer because businesses would no longer be able to access the EU from Britain in the same way. Our economy would be smaller,” Cameron said.