Don’t listen to out of touch elite on Europe , says City entrepreneur

He founded a FTSE 100 giant and proudly pays his taxes. Now – in a deeply personal plea – Peter Hargreaves argues for Brexit

ONE of Britain’s most successful entrepreneurs has urged the public to ignore the ‘out of touch’ elite and vote to leave a ‘stifling union’.

Peter Hargreaves, who cofounded pensions and savings giant Hargreaves Lansdown, launched a blistering attack on politicians and business bosses who have joined David Cameron’s ‘In’ campaign.

Some 200 business leaders – from chairmen of FTSE 100 companies to media tycoons – signed a letter backing the prime minister.

Mr Hargreaves, who set up Hargreaves Lansdown from his spare bedroom in Bristol in 1981, said the letter was ‘ nothing more than political jockeying’.

Writing for the Mail in a personal capacity after stepping down from the firm last year, the 69-year-old billionaire said: ‘I have long believed that the political and commercial leaders are invariably nothing more than meeting-attending bureaucrats.’

Company bosses who signed the letter include Tidjane Thiam, the Ivorian boss of Credit Suisse who lives in Geneva, and former Royal Bank of Scotland boss Stephen Hester, who runs insurance giant RSA.

A quarter of the 36 FTSE 100 bosses who signed campaigned to join the euro, including Sir Martin Sorrell, the £43million-a-year chief executive of advertising giant WPP.

Mr Hargreaves has dismissed Europhiles’ warnings that leaving the EU will be a trade catastrophe, because the UK is a ‘major market for both France and Germany’.

Although Mr Hargreaves is worth an estimated £2billion, he pays all his taxes in Britain, unlike many of his peers who are based abroad.

EVER since the Prime Minister tried to negotiate a new deal for Britain and then set the date of the referendum, there has been much posturing and sabre rattling. But the electorate must ignore all of this political noise and make its own decision.

It is my view that a lot of the comment we have heard from politicians and other business people is neither considered or valuable. It represents nothing more than political jockeying. I have long believed that the political and commercial leaders are invariably nothing more than meeting-attending bureaucrats. The more important their titles, the more out of touch with the populous and the world in general.

One person I’m inclined to ignore totally is Eton and Oxford-educated Boris Johnson, as his views will bend whichever way the wind will take him to political stardom. We have only to mention his greatest folly as mayor of London: the prevention of the most important infrastructure project in the UK – the third runway at Heathrow.

This week we learned that the bosses of 200 companies have committed to the In campaign. There are around 5.4million UK companies, so it is only a minuscule proportion of bosses that have signed up.

The chief executives and chairmen included in the 200, represent 36 FTSE 100 companies. That means 64 companies have not signed on the dotted line, far fewer than the Government must have hoped given that this means nearly twice as many believe we should either stay in, or believe that this is a decision for the British voters to make.

And as I’ve stated above, the bigger the company, the more bureaucratic the job.

We should also ignore all the socalled experts – such as Mark Carney, the Canadian-born Bank of England supremo who seems to suggest that the EU had been an inspiration. You can discount much of what he says, not least because he hasn’t been here for most of our EU commitment. This is a man who seems to change his mind about the next move in interest rates every time he is asked – yet giving clarity on this is supposed to be his job.

He is certainly wrong about the EU’s effect, because it is my view that its red tape and regulations have stifled enterprise in the UK, not helped. All I have heard from the In campaign is a glib meaningless statement that somehow we would be ‘better and stronger together’. I have seen no fact or statement with any substance whatsoever.

We are informed that a huge por- tion of our trade is with Europe. That wouldn’t stop if we exit the EU.

Everyone keeps forgetting we buy more from countries in the EU than they buy from us. If we left the EU everyone inside the union would want a free trade deal immediately so that their businesses could con- tinue to get business from companies in the UK.

We are a major market for both France and Germany – look out of your window and count what proportion of the cars passing are continental European.

I was in the Maldives recently and I was surprised how much a nation with, in the main only a rudimentary education system, were smarter than our political leaders.

I was agog when an employee in the hotel informed me that the marketing of the Maldives for tourism is now concentrated on the dynamic parts of world.

He even knew that European economic growth rates were pedestrian in contrast.

That’s what we should be doing. Forging trading links with nations that have fast growth rates and dynamic economies. It’s the way to make our businesses better. While we are in the EU we must wait on unmotivated, overpaid Eurocrats before we are allowed to forge these dynamic trading partnerships.

Mr Cameron has presented the deal from Brussels that he has secured for the UK. He wasn’t aiming high in the first place and has come back with less.

Furthermore, there seems to be concerns that all of it could be rescinded anyway.

I need only to remind you how much effort was put in by Margaret Thatcher to obtain a rebate against our exorbitantly high EU dues and demands. This great stride was given away on a whim by Tony Blair.

Does any citizen feel secure that a future government will not perpetrate a similar act in the future?

They could easily rescind all the paltry concessions which we are supposed to take into consideration when casting our vote on June 23.

Surely the only way we can be safe from a Blair-like future gesture is to be Out – we must leave the EU.

FINALLY, I implore the electorate to study the facts and figures on both sides, that is if the In camp can produce any. Examine the unnecessary regulation, the actual cost of membership – £19bn every year and even then Brussels normally asks for aboveinflation increases.

This is just the start of the debate on the EU. But between now and June 23 I plan to lay out the facts and figures for the electorate’s deliberation and I sincerely hope the In campaign will do likewise.

The electorate need no more bluster. They need hard facts so they can make a considered opinion before they make their mark on the referendum ballot paper – and hopefully, decide to leave this disastrous and stifling union. Peter Hargreaves was writing

in a personal capacity