JCB TYCOON QUITS ANTI-BREXIT CBI
ONE of Britain’s biggest exporters is to quit the CBI in protest at its stance against Brexit.
Anthony Bamford of JCB is believed to have decided to pull out over apocalyptic warnings that leaving the EU could cost £100billion and lead to 950,000 job losses.
It is understood the firm will remain in the pro-Brussels group only until its membership expires next year.
‘JCB has taken the right decision – the CBI is one of the most irrelevant organisations ever formed,’ said Peter Hargreaves, founder of financial services firm Hargreaves Lansdown, last night.
‘Any employer that joins the CBI has gone soft. Businesses squander their money on it but it has no relevance in today’s world. I’d like to see other companies joining JCB in leaving this organisation, which told lies about Brexit.’
The business lobbying group was one of the loudest voices backing Remain during the referendum campaign.
But at the same time Lord Bamford’s company – the third-largest manufacturer of construction equipment in the world – donated £100,000 to Vote Leave.
And just weeks before the June 23 poll the billionaire boss wrote to his 6,500 staff to say they had ‘very little to fear’ from Britain leaving the EU.
‘The UK is a trading nation and the fifth-largest economy in the world. I am very confident that we can stand on our own two feet,’ he said.
‘I believe that JCB and the UK can prosper just as much outside the EU, so there is very little to fear if we do choose to leave. I voted to stay in the Common Market in 1975. I did not vote for a political union. I did not expect us to hand over sovereignty to the EU.’
Last night a spokesman for JCB would not confirm that the manufacturer’s decision to leave the business group was in response to its pro-EU stance, saying
merely: ‘I can confirm that JCB is ending its membership of the CBI.’
A spokesman for the CBI said: ‘It’s always a shame to see any member leave the CBI, but we recognise that businesses have competing priorities and we respect that.’
Jacob Rees-Mogg, Tory MP for North-East Somerset and Brexit campaigner, said: ‘I’d like to congratulate JCB on its perspicacity.
‘It is a model of a successful export business around the world and a representative of entrepreneurialism rather than stodgy protectionism.
‘In contrast, the CBI has an amazing record of getting everything wrong, whether it is opposing Margaret Thatcher’s reforms or promoting the euro. I can see why some industrialists think they no longer want to spend the money on the subscriptions when they are so badly represented.
‘The CBI is now essentially redundant. Perhaps others will be considering saving their subscriptions.’
Yesterday the CBI’s director-general, Carolyn Fairbairn, intensified her lobbying in favour of a so-called ‘soft Brexit’, which preserves the fullest possible access to Europe’s single market.
And she said Theresa May’s insistence on an immigration crackdown on foreign workers could close the door to the UK staying an open trading economy.
MPs reacted with fury to her comments. Like Mr Rees-Mogg, they pointed out that the business group had a track record of being wrong on the economy, having once claimed it was vital for the UK to join the European single currency.
They also pointed out that the CBI’s ‘cry of anguish’ came only days after Mrs May lashed metropolitan elites who sneer at the concerns of ordinary Britons on issues such as mass immigration.
In a firm slapdown to the CBI, the Prime Minister’s spokesman said last night: ‘Britain is an open nation.’
Ex-Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith told the Daily Mail that the business group was seeking to frustrate the process of leaving the EU only out of naked self-interest.
He added: ‘ The CBI is still fighting yesterday’s battle. There is a simple answer to them: grow up. Join the real debate and stop playing silly games designed to bully the Government. Like it or not, the days of cartel lobbying in Brussels by big business to keep out small businesses will be over.’
Dover Tory MP Charlie Elphicke said: ‘This is a cry of anguish by big business and the jet-set elite who have had their own way for too long.
‘The CBI were wrong on the European exchange rate mechanism, wrong on the euro and the British people are going to prove them wrong again.
‘They need to understand that the UK’s economic interests are not necessarily the same as their own interests.
‘While the CBI and big business bleat about Brexit, small businesses have been busy creating jobs for hard-working Britons.
‘We need a Britain that works for everyone. That includes local towns and regions – not just the metropolitan elite.’
More people are feeling confident in the economy than those who are downbeat for the first time in at least two years, according to a report.
Barclaycard said consumer confidence had jumped to a new record high, with 48 per cent of people feeling upbeat about the economy. Forty-seven per cent were not confident and the remainder were unsure.
Paul Lockstone, managing director at Barclaycard, said: ‘For the first time since Barclaycard began tracking consumer confidence in 2014, more people now tell us they feel confident about the UK economy than those who don’t, and the proportion has jumped since the EU referendum vote in June.
‘This recovery in confidence, combined with the warmer September weather, helped to prolong the summer feeling among consumers last month.
‘Increased spend on experiences, and in particular with friends and family in pubs and restaurants, delivered one of the strongest months for spend growth so far this year.’