Theresa May leaves Downing Street yesterday afternoon PA Wire / PA Images PA Wire / PA Images / PA Images

A HARD BREXIT, that is one with no deal agreed, would cost the UK economy an enormous £80 billion (€91 billion), a leaked analysis claims.

The British government’s own secret economic analysis of the potential fallout suggests that a no-deal exit would see the UK having to borrow an additional £120 billion over the next 15 years, the Guardian reports.

That £120 billion is mitigated slightly by an alleged £40 billion gain to be made on the back of Britain leaving the EU – including £11 billion in payments to the bloc which would no longer fall due.

Worst affected by the potential economic fallout would be the Brexit heartlands of the north-east and West Midlands – which would see 16% and 13% hits to their economic growth respectively.

Perhaps even more stark are the effect a no-deal exit would have on retail prices – with the secret analysis suggesting overall high street prices to rise by 21%, and, crucially, food and drink costs to rise by 17%.

The new in-depth analyses are based on the initial leak of the original report to Buzzfeed News last week, which had broadly suggested that Brexit would see the UK as being worse off in every conceivable scenario.

The news comes at a particularly precarious time for the British government of Theresa May.

With Phase Two of the Brexit talks on the horizon, May and her cabinet were locked in talks of their own yesterday, discussions which will continue today, regarding the Northern Irish border situation and the problem of what sort of relationship the UK will actually have with the EU post-Brexit.

The Northern Irish talks have proven particularly troublesome – the true legislative nature of the slightly opaque agreement reached last December, which saw both sides of the Irish border emerge with their pride intact, will shortly have to be fully realised.

Given May’s government is wholly dependent on the unionist MPs of the DUP, the Prime Minister is caught somewhat between a rock and a hard place.

Northern Ireland would be the third-worst affected of the UK’s regions by a no-deal Brexit – however the secret analysis, which is currently viewable to all MPs only in a confidential reading room in Westminster, does not model the impact of a hard border between the North and the Republic.

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