Brexit: Alistair Darling says he is more worried now than during 2008 financial crash

'We’ve got no Government, no Opposition. The people who got us into this mess have run away'

Alistair Darling has said he is more worried now following the decision to leave the European Union, than he was when Chancellor during the 2008 financial crash.

Lord Darling, who steered the nation through the recession in 2008 under Gordon Brown’s premiership, warned that the current “vacuum” in politics risk making a “bad situation worse”.

“We’ve got no Government, we’ve got no Opposition. The people who got us into this mess have run away – they’ve gone to ground and we now have a four month gap before we’re likely to get a new Prime Minister,” Mr Darling told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

During the EU referendum campaign Lord Darling joined forces with George Osborne, the Chancellor, to warn of an emergency Budget in the event of a Brexit. They claimed that £15 billion of tax rises and £15 billion of spending cuts would been needed to make up for a £30 billion “black hole” created by Britain’s exit from the EU.

Lord Darling added: “It is not a happy situation, which is why I am more worried now than I was in 2008. A difficult problem could be fixed because you could see what you needed to do. Here, there is so much uncertainty, so many unknowns; it is going to be very damaging for the country.

“I quite accept that the negotiations can’t start until we have a new Prime Minister but we cannot have a fourth month period during which nothing happens – we’ve got to think very seriously about what relationship, what trade relationship we have with the European Union…where are we on free movement of people, which is such a pivotal issue.”

“We have taken this decision and we have no plan for the future”.

Asked whether he “overdoing the gloom”, the former Chancellor replied: “There was turbulence on Friday and more I suspect in the days ahead. Boris Johnson seems to be treating this as a big game, the last four months were just a jolly laugh, it really didn’t matter – nothing is going to change.

“What I am really concerned about is this gap between now and October when we’ll have a new Prime Minister – if we don’t do some serious thinking about what our options are and if we don’t start engaging with the European Union itself…the risk is we make a bad situation worse. We simply can’t afford to do that, if you leave a vacuum in politics…then that is when the trouble starts.