UK Treasury reportedly sees 2027 GDP growth at 0.3% if the Strait of Hormuz stays closed, according to reports

Internal government scenario work of this kind surfaces periodically around Middle East escalation risk, and its significance lies less in the specific number than in the fact that the contingency is being formally modelled and has reached the press, which historically has tended to mean it is being taken seriously inside the relevant ministry. The channel is well established: the Strait carries a large share of seaborne crude and LNG, and a sustained closure transmits to the UK through energy import costs, lifting headline inflation while compressing real activity, a stagflationary mix that complicates the rate path. The distinction worth drawing is between a brief disruption, which markets have historically faded once shipping and insurance normalise, and a prolonged closure, which is what this scenario appears to describe and which has few modern precedents of comparable duration. For the UK specifically the gas leg matters as much as the crude leg, given the structural sensitivity of the economy to European gas pricing. The follow-ons are whether this estimate is confirmed, whether official forecasts or the Bank incorporate a comparable assumption, and how the scenario sits against what freight, insurance and physical energy markets are already pricing.