Gerard Lyons: Is the UK economy underestimated?
The Brexit supporting economist says UK forecast expectations are "far more pessimistic" than reality.
The UK economy has been repeatedly underestimated, according to a Brexit supporting economist.
Gerard Lyons told the 大象传媒 Hardtalk programme鈥檚 Stephen Sackur that the actual out-turn figures for Britain has often tended to be better than the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) expected.
Mr Lyons - who has worked as an adviser for British politicians including Gordon Brown and Boris Johnson - warned that the British economy is facing global headwinds.
"There鈥檚 no doubt that one shouldn鈥檛 overly optimistic at the moment," he said.
鈥淭he near-term outlook for Britain and for Western Europe is a recession and depending on the policy response unfortunately could be a deep recession."
But Mr Lyons said he was still optimistic about the future prospects of the British economy and that forecasts have repeatedly underestimated the UK鈥檚 economic growth.
"The reality is if we look at the last six years often the forecast, the expectations, have proved to be far more pessimistic than the out-turn," he said.
