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Brexit will ‘return Britain to the 70s - and leave it impoverished,’ says EU leader
A senior EU leader has given a bleak and pessimistic assessment of where Brexit will lead Britain – saying that it will ‘return Britain to the 70s.
Speaking in an interview with NRC, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, Minister of Finance and President of the Euro Group said that the vote could leave Britain ‘impoverished’.
Dijsselbloem said ‘Twenty years from now we will speak again, and then see a return to England where it was around in the 70s.
‘Totally outdated, massive unemployment, totally impoverished. That seems to me the model of the future for England.’
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His comments came in response to Theresa May’s combative speech this week, where she said, ‘What I am proposing cannot mean membership of the EU single market.’
May’s speech also appeared to rule out the sort of close ties adopted by non-EU members Switzerland or Norway.
Theresa May said that Britain would rather walk away from talks than agree a bad a deal – and told EU leaders that punishing Britain would be ‘an act of calamitous self-harm’.
