Scots are being warned their homes, pensions and incomes are at risk after it emerged Liz Truss may have to find £60 billion worth of cuts to get public finances back under control.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) claimed it was not possible to deliver cuts on that scale through efficiency savings and "trimming the fat" - and that it would require major cuts to public services.
Analysts said failure to present a credible plan over how Westminster will reduce its debt mountain could result in a worse crisis than 1976, when the Labour government was forced to seek a bailout from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
They warned that rising interest rates as the Bank of England seeks to curb spiralling inflation were likely to result in a "bruising" increase in unemployment.
Alison Thewliss, the SNP's treasury spokeswoman, said the cuts would be a "dangerous threat" to pensions, homes and incomes across the country.
Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng is due to set out his medium-term fiscal plan explaining how the Government will get debt falling as a proportion of national income in the wake of his £43 billion mini-budget tax giveaway on October 31.
In its "green budget" report ahead of Kwarteng's statement, the IFS said Government borrowing now looked set to hit almost £200 billion this year - around double the £99 billion that was forecast at the time of the last budget in March.
Thewliss said: "The Tory wreckonomics of Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng is putting people's homes, pensions and incomes under an increasingly dangerous threat. The ticking Tory £100billion debt interest bomb, and looming £60billlion cuts, is devastating - and shows Scotland needs independence to escape the chaos of Westminster control.
"As the Scottish Government prepares its economic case for independence, we can already see the UK government's broken case for continued Westminster control - and it's catastrophic for Scotland.
"Whether it's a Tory or Labour Westminster government, Scotland faces years of Brexit damage, deep austerity cuts and mounting debt under Westminster rule."
Meanwhile, analysis by the investment bank Citi forecast that the economy could grow by an average of just 0.8 per cent a year for the next five years - far short of the 2.5 per cent "trend" rate of growth the Chancellor has said he wants to achieve.
The IFS said that on that basis, it would require a "fiscal tightening" of £62 billion in 2026-27 to stabilise debt levels - so even reversing all Kwarteng's mini-budget tax cuts would not be enough.
Even if growth were to pick up by 0.25 per cent a year - described by the IFS as a "big increase" - the Chancellor would still have to find cuts of £40 billion.
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