Photo by James Claffey on Unsplash
British entrepreneur Lord Alan Sugar has branded Brexit a disaster.
He was speaking just ahead of the 5th anniversary of the UK’s EU exit.
He said that if he had the choice the UK should go on bended knee to the EU asking to be readmitted.
Lord Sugar, a hugely successful business tycoon and host of TV’s The Apprentice show, said on British TV that Brexit was a terrible mistake.
Friday, 31 January marked the 5th anniversary of the UK leaving the European Union. It left at 11pm on Jan 31 2020.
Britons had voted to leave the EU by 52 per cent to 48 per cent in 2016.
On that day, Great Britain severed the political ties it had held for 47 years, but stayed inside the EU single market and customs union for a further 11 months to maintain trade flows.
The Conservatives in the UK and others have accused Labour of trying to dismantle Brexit and drag us back into the EU’s grasp.
Hopes of Remainers of a second referendum appear doomed to failure as the UK PM Sir Keir Starmer appears to have ruled this out.
Sir Keir, whose party took power in last year’s elections, is due in Brussels on Monday to discuss European security issues.
It is claimed that almost six in 10 Britons (59 per cent) think that Brexit has gone fairly or very badly, with just 12 per cent believing it has gone well, according to a YouGov poll in October.
On Friday, UK trade expert David Henig told The Independent newspaper: ”The UK now has significant trade barriers to its neighbours. It’s something we will have to live with. We will not be allowed to forget it; there will always be issues.”
The paper, which championed the UK’s links with the EU, also quotes a former senior UK government minister, Lord Heseltine, who said that nearly five years on, Brexit has been a historic disaster.
He told the paper “It has destroyed Britain’s leadership in Europe just at a time when there was a critical need (for it), it has closed off opportunities for the younger generation to share in the benefits of Europe and it has denied Britain’s industrial base access to the research and policies of Europe. Our economy is much worse because of it and there is no reputable authority that denies this.”
However, Nigel Farage, a former MEP who famously led the campaign for the UK to exit the EU, is among those who says the country very much took the right decision and that Britain will benefit greatly from leaving the now 27-strong bloc.