Reeves arrives at IMF with little leeway to prove its UK downgrade wrong

Chancellor faced with fund’s forecast that impact of Iran war will leave Britain as G7’s biggest loser

• Iran war escalation could trigger global recession, IMF warns

The Iran war is bad news for the global economy. But for some countries, the unfolding conflict is having a bigger impact than for others. The International Monetary Fund’s verdict is that Britain is the G7’s biggest loser.

Amid the rising damage from the Middle East war, the Washington-based fund warned UK economic growth rate would be 0.5 percentage points lower this year than it had predicted back in January – the biggest downgrade among the club of wealthy nations.