Take it easy is Christine Lagarde’s exit plea

The UK and EU should get on with Brexit in an “efficient and predictable way”, the head of the International Monetary Fund Christine Lagarde said.

Lagarde said the IMF “will continue to encourage the parties involved to actually proceed with this transition in the most efficient, predictable way in order to reduce the level of uncertainty”.

Markets had been caught out on Friday, said Lagarde, mispricing the outcome of the referendum.

“Despite that, there was no panic. There was a violent, brutal, immediate massive move. The pound went down by 10%,” Lagarde said.

“But there was no panic, and the central bankers did the job that they were prepared to do just in case,” Lagarde, who had been in contact with Chancellor George Osborne and EU finance ministers over the weekend, said if the UK left the EU, “there is no doubt” it will have domestic economic impact and that, in turn, would affect Europe.

She said the outcome “is going to depend on certainty or uncertainty, predictability or lack of predictability — people going in a risk-off mode or considering that the situation is going to settle back.

“At this point in time, policymakers, both in the UK and in Europe, are holding that level of uncertainty in their hands. And how they come out in the next few days is going to really drive the direction in which risk will go.”