LONDON (AP) – The British were warned for weeks that a vote to leave the European Union would result in economic pain. Now they’ll find out whether it will.
U.K. financial leaders are scrambling to reassure households, businesses and investors that they can contain the doom and gloom they had predicted in case of a British exit, or Brexit. The pound plunged to its lowest level in over 30 years on Friday, raising concerns about price inflation, and shares in the U.K.’s biggest banks and real estate builders posted double-digit declines as economists predicted the country would fall into recession.
Economists slashed their forecasts for Britain, with some expecting a recession and next to no growth next year. That’s a sharp reverse for an economy that had been among the best-performing in the developed world in recent years.
In an early sign of problems, Moody’s Investors Service downgraded the U.K. outlook from “stable” to “negative.” The referendum result, it said, “will herald a prolonged period of uncertainty for the UK, with negative implications for the country’s medium-term growth outlook.”
Holly Miller, 32, said the vote would affect her economic life profoundly.