STOP TALKING
As markets rebound, the losers won’t stop moaning
BITTER Remain campaigners were yesterday blasted for talking down Britain in revenge for losing the historic European Union referendum.
As stock markets continued to rebound after Brexit, business leaders, politicians and academics who supported staying tied to the EU were accused of risking damaging the nation’s economic prospects with their ‘relentlessly negative’ reaction to the vote.
Dredging up the failed Project Fear campaign, the doom-mongers insisted the country was teetering on the brink of economic disaster.
The pound continued to struggle against the dollar and the euro yesterday – but the FTSE 100 hit a ten-month high, with its biggest weekly gain for eight years.
As the UK continued to feel the fall-out:
Budget airline easyJet sparked outrage over plans to move its headquarters out of Britain;
Lord Kinnock, whose family have amassed millions of pounds’ worth of pay and perks from the EU, said leaving was the ‘end of Britain’;
George Osborne abandoned his target to return Britain to the black by 2020 – and blamed his U-turn on the vote to quit the EU;
The Financial Times newspaper, a staunch backer of the Remain camp, warned that Britain was ‘starting to imitate’ crisis-hit Greece;
A Cambridge academic attended a meeting naked with the words ‘Brexit leaves Britain naked’ written on her breasts and stomach.
Last night Leave campaigners urged opponents to get behind making post-Brexit Britain a success. Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg said: ‘Project Fear lost, it is as simple as that. The British people voted for hope, not fear. These people are sour losers – they need to stop talking Britain down.
‘The Chancellor is using Brexit as an easy excuse for dropping his target, and Easyjet is setting its face against its customers because they did not like what they were saying.’
The FTSE 100 index rose another 1.13 per cent yesterday to a tenmonth high of 6577.83. It enjoyed its biggest weekly gain since 2008, and the fourth biggest ever, adding £114billion to the value of Britain’s largest companies. It is an extraordinary turnaround after the FTSE 100 fell 5.62 per cent in the two days following the vote. The FTSE 250, often seen as a better economic barometer because many of its firms are British rather than global, has risen by 10 per cent in four days but remains below its pre-Brexit peak following a 13.65 per cent fall in the two days after the vote.
But British manufacturers celebrated their best month since January. Research group Markit said its index of activity, where scores over 50 show growth, rose from 50.4 in May to 52.1 in June. Tony Cross, analyst at Trustnet Direct, said: ‘There’s still a lot of dust that needs to settle ... but early indications show many London-listed blue chip stocks have shrugged off the uncertainty – at least for now.’
The pound fell 12 per cent against the dollar after the vote, from above $1.50 to a 31-year low below $1.32, before recovering. Sterling was down again yesterday, at below $1.33 and €1.20, after Bank of England Governor Mark Carney said interest rates could soon be cut. Analysts yesterday said the pound’s fall could help the economy by increasing exports.
Dr Savvas Savouri, of hedge fund Toscafund, hit out at the ‘confused nonsense’ peddled about by Remain supporters. John Longworth, exchief of the British Chambers of Commerce, said: ‘Politicians and pundits need to stop talking Britain down. They led this campaign of doom for four months before the referendum and it’s in danger of becoming a selffulfilling prophecy unnecessarily.’
But Cambridge economist Dr Victoria Bateman protested against Brexit by turning up naked to a faculty meeting with ‘Brexit leaves Britain naked’ written on her. A source said the group ‘managed to get through the meeting’s agenda’ but would not say if Dr Bateman, 36, stayed naked throughout.