British financier and chairman of the private equity firm Terra Firma Guy Hands said in an interview with Bloomberg on Friday that the UK economy has been weakened by Brexit. He went on to claim the nation has been driven into a “sort of geriatric decline.”
Speaking in the outlet’s weekly “In the City” podcast, the billionaire suggested that since the UK left the European Union, it has been attempting to compete on the world stage, however the current laws in the nation are not suitable for the new conditions, where Britain is functioning alone.
He said he felt the UK is at a risk of becoming poorer compared to other European countries, unless there is a change.
He went on, “I look at the UK and see that, in 2030, Poland will be wealthier than we are. In 2040, we will be the poor man in Europe.”
Hands said that he felt that the UK should not have left the EU, because the nation needed the consistency and the rule of law which came with being a member state. However he notes not a single politician is talking about returning. He lamented the the country has basically been thrown back nearly 50 years, to the 1970’s – a time of crises, with skyrocketing inflation, strikes, power outages, and high unemployment.
The billionaire noted that over the past seven years an enormous amount of political change has occurred, which has left investors worried and the public lacking confidence in their leadership.
Hands said that now that the UK has exited the EU, the government of Britain could act radically and change some of its laws, specifically its “extraordinarily complex” labor laws which he called “a nightmare” compared to the laws of other European nations. Hands also noted that the UK needs a little “boring bookkeeping” and the nation’s Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, appears to be good at it.
He also noted the government has managed to repair some of the damage inflicted by the “absolutely disastrous” economic policies of Liz Truss, which nearly led to the country needing a bailout. He noted however that one thing Truss was “100% right” about was the fact that the nation needed to become more productive.
