Toppling Rishi Sunak's Election Promise, Britain Sinks Into Recession As GDP Contracts For Two Successive Quarters

With Gross Domestic Product (GDP) shrinking by 0.3 percent in the fourth quarter of 2023, Britain sank into the recession, giving a huge blow to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak ahead of elections this year.

Notably, one of the top priorities for Sunak was growing the economy. Responding to the data, Finance Minister Jeremy Hunt said that "high inflation is the single biggest barrier to growth".

In the previous quarter, the GDP had contracted by 0.1 percent. This means the fall of GDP in two successive quarters has put Britain into recession, which is being attributed to high inflation and a cost-of-living crisis.

UK inflation remained at 4.0 percent in January, similar to that of December which is double the Bank of England's target rate. Also, this is the first recession for Britain since 2020, which was induced by the Covid pandemic.

ONS director of economic statistics Liz McKeown was quoted as saying by the NDTV, "All the main sectors fell on the quarter, with manufacturing, construction and wholesale being the biggest drags on growth."