Armed forces face £1.5bn in cuts if Britain votes Leave, warns George Osborne
'I'd have to make the best of a very bad job' says Chancellor
BRITAIN’S Armed Forces will face a fresh wave of swingeing cuts if we vote to quit the EU, George Osborne warned yesterday.
The Chancellor would ditch plans to buy a modern generation of warships, fighter jets and weaponry — and make thousands more troops redundant.
Mr Osborne said: “It’s the last thing I want to do, but I’d have to make the best of a very bad job.”
His stark warning comes after six years of relentless cuts which saw defence spending slashed by a fifth and 20,000 jobs axed.
Mr Osborne made it clear the military will bear the brunt of drastic action needed to plug a public finances black hole.
He said: “I’d have to start cutting key budgets like defence. I’ve looked at the numbers and it looks like defence would have to be cut by between £1billion and £1.5billion.
"It’s the last thing I want to do because I want the country to stay in the EU.
"But if we leave, Britain is smaller and so our Armed Forces will be smaller and that means fewer planes, ships and personnel to defend us.
“So it will hit not only our national economic security but national security.”
Mr Osborne insists that further cuts would not break Britain’s Nato commitment to spend two per cent of national income on defence because our earnings would fall post-Brexit.
He added: “We have brilliant, brilliant Armed Forces, who do an incredible job. They have a real plan to get the latest equipment, to make sure our sailors have the latest ships, our brilliant RAF airmen have the latest planes.
“But all of that would be up in the sky again because the country would be facing a big hole in the public finances.
“You can’t leave the defence budget untouched. We would have to look at the kit and the personnel. In the end, you have to make your budget fit the money coming in.
“We’d be plunged straight back into the darkness,” he said grimly as he interrupted a referendum campaign tour to chat over a lunchtime pint.
“The frustration for me and Sun readers, who have put in an amazing effort, is we have worked so hard to pull Britain out of this economic mess and it could all be put at risk.
We wouldn’t be a Greater Britain. We’d be a Smaller Britain
George Osborne
“We’ve been through the dark night together and you can see the sunrise as the economy gets stronger, with more people in work. Why would we want to turn back? Why would we go back into the darkness?
“This would be an entirely self-inflicted wound. This would be Britain voluntarily choosing to be poorer.”
Mr Osborne denied his doomsday scenario was another attempt to scare the public into voting to remain in the EU. It was simply a case of telling people the facts before they put their cross in the box on June 23.
He pointed to independent experts predicting Brexit would leave a black hole in public finances of £20billion to £40billion — plus uncertainty over our ability to trade.
The Chancellor explained: “Warnings are coming thick and fast. You can ignore them if you want but you should definitely be aware of them before you vote.
“Over the long term, our country will be poorer and that creates outcomes for British people which are not attractive.
"Remember what happened a few years ago when spending got out of control? We’d have a repeat of that, only worse.
“You’d have less money coming in, more people out of work, lower incomes, values of homes going down, the cost of mortgages going up, pensions being worth less.
Osborne: Workers will take the flak
WORKERS on low incomes would foot a Brexit bill, claims the Chancellor.
He said the better-off, including Leave campaign chiefs, could weather the economic storm.
But “the good, hardworking people of Britain” would see wages squeezed or jobs lost.
Mr Osborne said: “Brexit is for rich people who can maybe survive a few years where the economy turns down because they won’t lose their jobs.
“It will be people providing for their family on low and middle incomes who pay the price.
“It won’t be all the politicians parading around saying leave the EU.”
He added: “They are not going to be the ones queuing up at the job centre, who see their payslip at the end of the day with a big fat minus as the money comes off.”
“This is the reality check for the British people. I don’t know of anything you might gain by leaving the EU which outweighs that cost.”
Mr Osborne was speaking during a tour of the Scottish borders to drum up support for the Remain campaign.
He tore into the “false prospectus” of Boris and his Brexiteers, warning they could lead us into a worse recession than those of recent times.
“In the end any recession is terrible,” he said.
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“The financial crash was immediate and there was a feeling it was a sharp shock that was going to be relatively short.
“The difference here is that for decades to come, Britain would be poorer. It would be a prolonged squeeze on the economy.
I am proud and passionate about this country. I think we have got a great future. We can be the big success story of the 21st century and the most prosperous place on the planet.
“Why would we give it all up on a false prospectus, on a con trick that somehow life would be better outside the EU? It won’t be. We wouldn’t be a Greater Britain. We’d be a Smaller Britain."