SIMON WATKINS

THE FTSE100 has risen since the Brexit vote as the Out campaigners have not ceased to crow. Clear evidence, they say, that Brexit is not bad for the UK.

Then last week, as the country reeled under Marmitegate, they claimed that Unilever was a ghastly corporation that was using Brexit unfairly to raise its prices.

Although it may not seem so at first sight, these two issues are directly related and they illustrate the incoherence of some Brexiteers’ arguments.

As I have not ceased to point out since June 23, the rise in the FTSE100 is categorically not a sign that the UK economy will sail through Brexit.

The FTSE100 is not a barometer of the UK economy. Our blue chip stock market index is dominated by international groups that have chosen to list their shares in London, but who carry out the vast bulk of their business abroad.

This means they earn their money in other currencies such as dollars and euros. More than two thirds of all earning by FTSE100 companies come from overseas.

So their sterling-denominated shares have at least kept their price and, in many cases, have risen.

And guess who that includes? Unilever. The Anglo-Dutch company is the third biggest company in the FTSE100. Its 11 per cent share price rise since the referendum has been a significant part of that rise in the FTSE which Brexiteers are so keen to boast about.

But now Unilever has acted to try to maintain the value of its income from the UK as the pound is falling and the Brexiteers are crying foul.

I have no doubt that its UK factories are facing higher costs as a result of the falling pound. But even if they are not, the fact remains that every pound it earns in the UK is now worth less.

Brexiteers cannot hail the rise in the FTSE driven by companies with earnings in dollars and euros and – at the same time – attack Unilever for trying to maintain the euro value of its profits in the face of a falling pound.

It is simply incoherent and sadly all too typical of the Brexit case.

Unilever is not alone and nor has it acted entirely unreasonably. Overseas suppliers who provide the international products we all buy in huge quantities will all be looking for price rises.

That is the reality of business and is one of the many plain facts which Brexiteers chose to ignore throughout the whole referendum campaign.

The pound has crashed. We are poorer. It really is that simple.