The Latest: Watchdog predicts recession after no-deal Brexit

BRUSSELS — The Latest on Britain’s talks to the leave the European Union (all times local):

11:25 a.m.

Britain’s independent economic watchdog says the U.K. will plunge into recession if it leaves the European Union without a divorce deal, with the pound plunging in value and the economy shrinking by 2% in a year.

The Office for Budget Responsibility says a no-deal Brexit would see “heightened uncertainty and declining confidence deter investment, while higher trade barriers with the EU weigh on exports.”

It predicted Thursday that GDP would fall by 2% by the end of 2020 in a no-deal scenario.

Britain is due to leave the EU on Oct. 31, but Parliament has rejected the government’s divorce deal with the bloc. Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt, who are vying to replace Theresa May as prime minister, both say they will leave without an agreement if the EU won’t renegotiate.

___

10:35 a.m.

Diplomatic language has gone out of the window in the standoff over Britain’s departure from the European Union, with a U.K. government delegate calling one top EU official a “stupid boy.”

Martin Callanan, Minister of State at the Department for Exiting the European Union of the United Kingdom, said ahead of an EU meeting that EU Commission Vice-President Frans Timmermans has spread “childish insults” about the British negotiating stance which has failed to bring a breakthrough in over two years of talks.

Timmermans says in a BBC documentary to be aired late Thursday that U.K. negotiators had been “running around like idiots.”

Callanan, quoting a famous riposte from the British sitcom “Dad’s Army,” said Timmermans was a “stupid boy.”

The Associated Press