THE head of Theresa May's policy forum has said there is a "very real prospect" that the UK will become an "isolated, small, insular, old, ageing economy" after Brexit.
Conservative MP George Freeman said the nightmare vision of Britain as "an old people's home that couldn't pay for itself" was one of two potential scenarios the could develop after withdrawal from the EU.
Britain faces a "generation-defining choice" over whether it goes down this path or becomes "a happy, prosperous, purposeful nation again" through post-Brexit entrepreneurship and innovation, he said.
Hard Brexit opponents 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 he was merely highlighting how Britain must choose between "managed decline or national renewal".
Speaking to the IPPR think tank, the MP said that when his children asked about what would happen after Brexit, he told them to imagine themselves looking back from 20 years in the future.
Viewed from this standpoint, Brexit could end up being seen as "the moment we finally failed as a great nation and became a second or third-tier nation", he suggested.
"We were overwhelmed by our debts, people with get-up-and-go did just that, they 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," he said.
"That I see as a very real prospect and it chills me to the bone."
But he also laid out an alternative post-Brexit future in which "we unleashed a revolution of entrepreneurship" and developed "Britain as an innovation economy".