Theresa May talks about a “Brexit dividend”. Her chancellor doesn’t use that phrase, but he has dropped heavy hints in advance of today’s Budget that the way to end austerity is by signing up to the miserable deal the prime minister is trying to negotiate.

But there is no Brexit dividend. Leaving the EU would cut trade and investment. Companies and people would earn less money and so pay less tax. This hit to the public finances would dwarf any savings from reduced financial contributions to the EU.

Philip Hammond is right that crashing out of the EU with no deal at all would have a bigger impact than the miserable half-in-half-out Brexit the prime minister has been negotiating. But both would harm the economy by reducing trade and investment.

By contrast, there would be a large “no Brexit” dividend if we stay in the EU. During the referendum, the government’s central estimate of the net annual hit to the public finances was £36 billion in 15 years – after taking account of reduced financial contributions to the EU.

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Even before we have left, investment is on hold and the economy is sagging. We have moved from the fastest growing large industrialised nation to the one of the laggards. The economy is 2.5% smaller than it would have otherwise been and the public finances have already been hurt by £26 billion a year, according to the Centre for European Reform. What’s more, this figure keeps growing as we continue to underperform.

If we stay in the EU, most of the investment that has been on hold in the last two and a half years would probably flow back. We would resume our position as the gateway to Europe. After that, we would probably return to the sort of growth rates we would have otherwise enjoyed.

What’s more, the new investment would be productive. Firms would no longer have to invest billions in Brexit preparations and the government wouldn’t have to spend or earmark billions on creating new regulatory agencies just to replace work done by the EU on our behalf.

We could also benefit from the new EU initiatives to improve its single market: a digital single market, capital markets union and integration of energy markets. Given that we have an edge in services industries, these projects play to our strengths.

The “no Brexit” dividend would be worth billions of pounds – and probably tens of billions of pounds – a year to the public purse. If we stay in the EU, this money should be invested in public services and neglected communities to heal our divided country and show that politicians have listened to the concerns that led many people to back Brexit in the first place.

With momentum building behind the People’s Vote campaign, it is not too late.

Edited by Luke Lythgoe