£1m for second poll from tycoon in 28p-an-hour factory pay row
A MULTI-millionaire fashion entrepreneur has given £1million to the campaign for a second Brexit referendum.
Julian Dunkerton, the co-founder of Superdry, suggested that he wanted to reverse the result and keep Britain in the EU. He said he saw a ‘genuine chance to turn this around’.
Mr Dunkerton – who began selling clothes from a market stall in Cheltenham – left the firm earlier this year after seeing it expand to over 500 retail outlets.
The company came under fire in 2015 after an investigation revealed factory workers in India were paid as little as 28p an hour.
Last night Mr Dunkerton said: ‘If Brexit had happened 20 years earlier, Superdry would never have become the global success that it did. We would have struggled to cope with negotiating customs and tariffs. Perhaps even more importantly, Europe was our staging post because inside the single market we had no fear of opening a store in France, Germany, Belgium or anywhere else.
‘I’m putting some of my money behind the People’s Vote campaign because we have a genuine chance to turn this around. I’ve got a good instinct for when a mood is going to change and we’re in one of those moments now. ‘It’s becoming clear there is no vision for Brexit and the politicians have made a mess of it. Increasingly, the public knows that Brexit is going to be a disaster. Maybe they just need to be given that little bit of hope that comes when they see how opinion is moving. ‘I will be paying for one of the most detailed polling exercises ever undertaken by a campaign so that more and more people have the confidence to demand the democratic right for their voice to be heard – to get a People’s Vote on any Brexit deal or the outcome of these negotiations.’ However pro-Brexit Tory MP Andrew Bridgen insisted it would make little difference as many former Remain voters were now swinging behind Leave. He told BBC News. ‘The way the EU have dealt with the UK Government in these negotiations, a large number of former Remain voters have come to the conclusion that we couldn’t possibly stay in this relationship any longer.’