Britain may need a bailout from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and is on the path to become the “sick man of Europe” because of Brexit, a senior finance chief has warned.
Former Conservative donor Guy Hands, founder of private equity company Terra Firma, said the Tories were no longer fit to governed in a scathing attack on the party.
Pointing to Brexit as a key reason for economic turmoil, Mr Hands said Tory mistakes made “in the past six years which has put the country on the path to be the sick man of Europe”.
Asked if the Tory party was fit to govern, the top financer told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “No”, adding: “It’s got to move on from fighting its own internal wars.”
Calling for Liz Truss’s successor to renegotiate with the EU for smoother trade, the Terra Firma founder said: “The Brexit that was done is completely hopeless and will only drive Britain into a disastrous economic state.”
Mr Hands said the Tories now had to “own up to the mistake they made and how they negotiated Brexit” and put in place someone with the “intellectual capability to re-negotiate Brexit”.
Without a major change of course on post-Brexit policy, the economy “is frankly doomed”, Mr Hands added.
Asked what he meant by doomed, he warned that Britain was on a path towards “steadily increasing taxes, reducing benefits and social services, higher interest rates and eventually the need for a bailout from the IMF like we [had] in the 1970s”.
Mr Hands said he wanted to be honest about the bleak scenario, despite his inclination to be “speak positively” as a business investor.
He said he was worried by “poverty which is moving up the economic level”, adding: “It’s now middle class people who will not be able to pay their mortgages when they are reset, who are finding it difficult to make ends meet. It will move across the whole of society.”
Ex-chancellor Rishi Sunak is favourite to become prime minister, though Penny Mordaunt is still “confident” she can reach 100 nominations and take the contest to grassroots members this week.
Mr Sunak previously vowed to press on with the highly-controversial Northern Ireland Protocol bill – which would give minister the power to unilaterally override parts of the Brexit deal
Ms Truss had reopened talks with Brussels on reaching a compromise on protocol checks before she resigned, but Mr Sunak has not given any indication he wants to push for a compromise deal.
Sir Keir Starmer said again he wanted to “make Brexit work” when asked about re-joining the single market under a Labour government during an LBC interview.
The Labour leader said “it’s a straight no from me” on re-joining the EU, when asked about a customs union and single market. “We do think that we should make Brexit work … I think we’ve got to make it work now.”
