LONDON, June 21 (Reuters) - Britain posted a larger-than-expected budget deficit last month as government spending rose, a reminder the next finance minister may have limited options to cushion any Brexit blow to the economy.
The budget deficit widened to 5.115 billion pounds, the Office for National Statistics said on Friday, a 23% rise on May 2018 and above all forecasts in a Reuters poll of economists.
For the first two months of the 2019/20 financial year, the deficit was 18% larger than a year earlier at just under 12 billion pounds.
Britain's official budget forecasters have predicted an increase in government borrowing this year after a steady fall in the size of the deficit from around 10% of economic output in 2010 to just above 1% last year.
The ONS revised up its estimate for borrowing in the 2018/19 financial year to 24.0 billion pounds from 23.5 billion pounds previously, pushing further above finance minister Philip Hammond's missed target of 22.8 billion pounds.
Government spending in May rose by 2.6% compared with a year ago, driven mostly by the purchase of goods and services.
Growth in tax receipts was mostly solid but corporation tax revenue edged down last month by 0.8% -- the first annual decline for any May since 2013.
Hammond this week ramped up his warnings to whoever becomes Britain's next prime minister that a no-deal Brexit would wipe out the money he has set aside for potential increases in public spending or tax cuts, which would represent an end to the austerity policies of much of the last decade.
Both candidates to replace Theresa May as prime minister -- former foreign secretary Boris Johnson and his successor Jeremy Hunt -- have said they are prepared to take Britain out of the European Union without a transition deal if necessary.
Most political commentators think Hammond would be replaced if Johnson, the frontrunner in the race to succeed May, wins.
(Reporting by Andy Bruce and William Schomberg)
