Brexiteer Crispin Odey warns slump is on way for UK economy

Hedgie tycoon Crispin Odey has sounded the alarm over the UK economy, warning it is “destined for recession” due to a drop in the pound.

The investment chief, a prominent Brexit campaigner and a winner from sterling’s fall, said a volatile cocktail of weak sterling and more central bank money printing would lead to ballooning inflation, hurting consumers and businesses.

“Sterling is getting more expensive the further it falls. [Bank Governor Mark] Carney is really under pressure and should be raising interest rates, but it now looks as though a rise in interest rates will be over his metaphorical dead body. We are now destined to have a recession in the UK as well as inflation,” he told his clients.

The fall in the pound, by 18% against its peers since the vote, has widened the gulf between inflation and central bank interest rates, at 0.5%. Inflation, which normally rises when the pound is weak, hit a two-year high in September of 1% but Odey thinks it will pass 3.5%.

“You have this strange paradox where the further sterling falls, the less attractive it is to investors because inflation is growing,” Odey told the Standard.