The EU is left to face must be rebuilt says

THE European Union is at grave risk of break-up after Britain’s Brexit vote and needs “thorough reconstruction”, Brussels was warned yesterday.

Eurocrats were also told they would speed the union’s disintegration if they treat the UK in an immature or punitive way.

Among those sending out the warnings was billionaire investor George Soros who infamously made huge profits in 1992 by betting against the pound as it plunged.

Last week he forecast a Brexit victory in Britain would trigger a “Black Billionaire investor George Soros Friday” of turmoil, though in fact the pound fell by less than he predicted. Speaking at the weekend, Mr Soros said the British economy and its people “stand to suffer significantly in the short to medium term” – even though it eventually “may or may not be relatively better off than other countries by leaving the EU”. He went on: “The catastrophic scenario that many feared has materialised, making the disintegration of the EU practically irreversible. “The financial markets worldwide are likely to remain in turmoil as the long, complicated

process of political and economic divorce from the EU is negotiated.”

Despite having criticisms of the EU, he added: “After Brexit, all of us who believe in the values and principles that the EU was designed to uphold must band together to save it by thoroughly reconstructing it.

“I am convinced that as the consequences of Brexit unfold in the weeks and months ahead, more and more people will join us.”

Ex-Tory cabinet minister Lord Francis Maude told BBC One’s Sunday Politics show that the talks to implement Brexit must not be rushed, not least because there was “deep anxiety” about the EU in many other European countries too.

Asked if he meant Brexit could trigger events leading to the end of the EU, the peer said: “Unless it reacts in a grown-up, sensible, mature way.”

He added that a messy divorce between Britain and the bloc would only harm both sides.

“There is no sense for our European neighbours to be acting in a way that deliberately harms Britain, because by harming Britain they harm themselves,” he said.

“If you inflict deliberate damage on your nearest neighbour, your biggest trading partner, then that has a blow-back effect on you as well.”