Manufacturing, which shrank by 2.3 per cent, was the worst-performing sector of the economy. The dominant services sector expanded but only just, at 0.1 per cent.
Another quarter of negative growth and Britain will be in recession – albeit rather later and shallower than George Osborne infamously predicted just ahead of the 2016 recession. Back then, the chancellor published Treasury forecasts suggesting that GDP would slip by between 3.5 and six per cent within two years of a Leave vote – and that unemployment would rise by between 500,000 and 800,000. In the event, unemployment has fallen to a 45 year low