NewsRescue
Brexit has harmed the UK economy and pushed it into a “sort of geriatric decline,” according to British investor and chairman of private equity firm Terra Firma, who spoke to Bloomberg on Friday.
The United Kingdom has been competing on the global arena since leaving the European Union, but the country’s current rules are unsuitable for the new environment, millionaire Guy Hands claimed in the outlet’s monthly ‘In The City’ podcast.
Unless something changes, the United Kingdom risks becoming poorer in comparison to other European countries.
“I look at the UK and see that, in 2030, Poland will be wealthier than we are,” he remarked. “By 2040, we will be Europe’s poorest country.”
According to Hands, the UK should not have left the EU since the country requires rule of law and consistency, but no politician has mentioned returning. He bemoaned that Brexit had effectively thrown the country back 50 years, to the 1970s, a decade largely recognised as a period of crisis, with surging prices, high unemployment, strikes, and power outages.
The billionaire believes that the massive amount of political change that has occurred in the UK over the last seven years has left investors apprehensive and the people lacking trust.
Now that the United Kingdom has left the European Union, the British government may take a drastic approach and reform some of its rules, according to Hands, citing the country’s “extraordinarily complex” labour laws, which are “a nightmare” in comparison to other European countries. According to Hands, the UK likewise need some “boring bookkeeping,” and the current Prime Minister Rishi Sunak appears to be competent at it.
The financier remarked that the British government has been successful in mending some of the damage done by Liz Truss, whose economic ideas were “absolutely disastrous” and would have necessitated a bailout. Truss’s point, on the other hand, that the UK needs to become far more productive in order to be more competitive was “completely correct.”
