People buy products because they are good – not because we are in the EU
NEIL Westwood, who won £100,000 backing for a 40 per cent stake in Magic Whiteboard, a ‘whiteboard on a roll’, on the show in 2008, has hit out at Lord Sugar’s claim that leaving the EU would lead to a ‘disaster’ for the UK.
Sugar, who was appointed an enterprise tsar by the Government on Tuesday, said last week that pro-Brexit Boris Johnson had ‘gone off the rails’ with his ‘outlandish’ claims over the referendum.
He told Sky News that Brexit would be a ‘disaster’ and added: ‘We have to stay in. It’s ludicrous, I don’t know what Brexit people are thinking.’
Westwood, who is launching Ifindyou, a mobile phone-linked device for locating misplaced keys and bags, said: ‘I heard Lord Sugar saying leaving the EU will be a disaster. I have to disagree. The EU economy has failed and they have miserable levels of growth and bailouts. Unemployment is over 20 per cent in a lot of EU countries.
‘If Lord Sugar was paying £10billion a year to be part of a club so wasteful and inefficient he would ask for his money back and fire the bureaucrats.
‘We can still trade effectively with countries without having the EU managing the process.
‘We can trade with non-EU countries anyway. We sell Magic Whiteboard to 20 countries, 70 per cent outside the EU. People buy products because they are good, not just because we are in the EU.’
Westwood, who with his wife now fully owns the £1.2million turnover Magic Whiteboard, added: ‘Far from being a disaster, it is an opportunity to create jobs and invest the billions we send to the EU every year in the UK.’
He also said: ‘George Osborne says Brexit will cause another recession. We are already back in recession. We are on a Worcester trading estate and everyone’s sales are down. Osborne knows this and will blame a Brexit for his policy. The Government has cut too much, increased taxes and reduced demand. They have done this, not Brexit.’