George Osborne’s 2015 Budget is surely a contender for one of the most consequential of recent times: not so much because of the measures it contained, most of which have been unpicked or were mothballed before they were enacted, but because of its political consequences. Although the Budget passed the House of Commons without incident, it proved politically explosive once implemented. The biggest cause of Tory pain? The £4.4bn of planned cuts to tax credits.
The political fallout of the planned cuts saw David Cameron’s approval ratings collapse and Osborne’s stock in Westminster crumble. Given the closeness of the 2016 EU referendum result, which swept both Cameron and Osborne out of politics, it seems at least highly plausible that, without the political storm caused by those cuts, the UK would not have voted for Brexit and that neither Cameron nor Osborne would have lost power suddenly and seemingly permanently in June 2016.
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