Virgin billionaire, Sir Richard Branson, says Chinese business partners are already pulling investment from the UK in the light of the EU referendum vote, and warned that “thousands of jobs will be lost”.
Speaking at the final round of Voom, a competition for young entrepreneurs hoping to secure funding and support from Virgin, Branson warned that the business climate after the Brexit vote was already hurting the economy.
“I met with a group of Chinese businessmen yesterday morning who have invested heavily in England and who are now going to stop investing and withdraw investments they’ve already made,” Branson told the Guardian.
He said his opinion that leaving the EU would damage investment in Britain was shared by “every single person I’ve met from overseas”.
Branson, whose business empire includes airline Virgin Atlantic and home broadband and TV provider Virgin Media, blamed pro-Brexit politicians for causing chaos in global markets, accusing them of misleading the public. Branson also has a stake in Virgin Money, which has suffered a 40% slump in its shares since the referendum.
“Businesspeople do not want politicians to completely and utterly wreck the hard work they’ve done for years and years and that is effectively what happened,” Branson said.
“Thousands and thousands of jobs will be lost as a result of this. Thousands of jobs that would have been created will be lost and the knock-on effect will be so dire.
“The sad thing is I really think Brexiters were misled and did not realise. People said it was scaremongering. It wasn’t scaremongering and the last 48 hours have proved that.”
Earlier in the week, Branson, who campaigned for the UK to remain in the EU, called on the government to consider holding a second referendum, “based on the misrepresentations made by the leave campaign”.
The entrepreneur does not have the right to vote in UK elections because he lives in the British Virgin Islands, but has weighed in on the Brexit debate, pointing out that he employs 50,000 people in the UK.
