Get all the latest politics news Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Invalid Email

The head of Theresa May's policy forum has risked angering Leave-backing colleagues by sketching out a post-Brexit future in which the UK becomes "an old people's home that couldn't pay for itself".

Conservative MP George Freeman said this was one of a range of possible outcomes after EU withdrawal, with other scenarios including an "entrepreneurship revolution" being unleashed across the UK.

Opponents of a hard Brexit seized upon his comments as a warning of what could go wrong as a result of the decision to leave the EU.

But Mr Freeman, the chairman of the Conservative Policy Forum, insisted that he was merely highlighting the fact that Britain faces a "generation-defining choice" between managed decline or national renewal.

Speaking to the IPPR thinktank, the Mid-Norfolk MP said that in a bad scenario, Brexit could be "the moment we finally failed as a great nation and became a second or third tier nation".

(Image: PA)

Sketching out how this could develop, he said: "People got up and left. We pulled out of Europe and became isolated, small, insular, old, ageing economy. We became an old people's home that couldn't pay for itself.

"That I see as a very real prospect and it chills me to the bone.

"It is an extreme choice but I think that is the choice we face as a country and the question whether we as a generation rise to it and grip it."

Labour MP Phil Wilson, a leading supporter of the Open Britain campaign against hard Brexit, said: "He is right to sound the alarm about the irreparable damage it could do to our national interests.

"Ministers' insistence that Brexit must be carried out at any cost, even if it turns us into a third tier country, is a complete betrayal of both Leave and Remain voters. Nobody voted for this nightmare scenario."

And the chief executive of Best for Britain, Eloise Todd, said: "The mask has slipped and now MPs close to Theresa May have admitted that we face economic catastrophe if we carry on with with their pig-headed Hard Brexit."

Responding on Twitter to reports of his comments, Mr Freeman, who backed Remain in last year's referendum, said: "Actually, I was making a speech not about Brexit but about how we tackle our deep structural economic challenges of debt, deficit and productivity.

"And highlighting that we face a generation defining choice - of 'managed decline' or National Renewal."

Mrs May's official spokesman said: "What we are focusing on is the opportunities that Brexit provides. The Prime Minister has said clearly that she believes Brexit provides the opportunity to create a safer and more prosperous country and that is where we are concentrating our efforts."