Refusal to put a concrete figure on the cost of Brexit is close to criminal negligence | Paul Mason

The chancellor may continue to predict the long-term direction of the public finances as if Brexit were not happening - but it is unsustainable and harms democracy

Over the summer the government replaced its strategy of abstract bluster over Brexit with one of concrete bluster. But there is one area in which the Brexit debate is still being conducted in an air of studied unreality: the fiscal cost.

Before the referendum, the Treasury predicted a 39bn short-term hike in government borrowing in the case of a leave victory, and the collapse of GDP by 7.5% in the case of hard Brexit. But it has now gone quiet.