Brexit: Will George Osborne go through with £30bn of taxes and spending cuts?

George Osborne had warned that he would be forced to slash public spending by £15bn ($20bn, €18.46bn) and hike taxes by the same substantial amount if the UK voted to split from the EU at the 23 June referendum. "There would be difficult decisions facing our country once again if we quit the EU. Difficult decisions starting next Friday, in the months ahead, and for years to come," he claimed, speaking alongside former Labour Chancellor Alistair Darling on 15 June.

"The impeccably independent Institute for Fiscal Studies says there would be a £30bn black hole in the public finances which we would have to try to fill. And this would be a permanent and structural hole – we couldn't just borrow more money to tide us over.

"As Chancellor, it would be my responsibility to try to restore stability to the public finances if we quit the EU and that would mean there would need to be an emergency budget.

"Legislating for the kind of measures required to tackle a large structural deficit takes time. Britain would need to get on with it.

"You can do it by raising taxes, or you can do it by cutting spending. Almost certainly, you'd have to do both."

The electorate has now spoken and by 52% to 48%, on a turnout of 71%, backed a Brexit. So will the Conservative Chancellor, who played a prominent role in the Remain campaign alongside David Cameron, follow through with his emergency budget threat?

The top Conservative has not been seen on UK's airwaves or TV stations since the historic result. Four tweets were sent out from George Osborne's official Twitter account, claiming Osborne respected the outcome of the vote, and he had spoken with representatives of the G7 about the economic effects of Brexit, and that the UK Treasury and Bank of England were monitoring the "situation closely".

The UK Treasury had not responded to IBTimes UK's requests for a clarification on the issue at the time of reporting.

But Labour immediately came out after the Brexit decision to commit to voting against an emergency budget. "The government must now take steps to stabilise the economy, and to protect jobs, pensions, and wages," said John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor.

"Labour will not allow any instability to be paid for by the working people of this country. There is no justification or mandate whatsoever for an emergency austerity budget. We need a clear programme of action to protect our economy."

Elsewhere, libertarian-minded think-tank the Adam Smith Institute (ASI) suggested Osborne's warning may have been empty political rhetoric. "It couldn't possibly be that [Osborne's] simply hiding among the rubble of a once-promising political career. Nor that the threat was just that, a threat, a piece of politics," said Tim Worstall, a senior fellow at the ASI.

"For of course, no Chancellor would just play politics with something as important as the economy, would they?"