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Tuesday 07 August 2018 3:20 pm  |  Updated:  Friday 24 May 2019 7:48 pm

Peter Hargreaves: Government hasn’t got ‘a clue’ on Brexit

By: Catherine Neilan

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One of the co-founders of Hargreaves Lansdown and a major supporter of the Leave campaign has slammed the government's handling of negotiations, saying there "isn't one person on our Brexit team who has a clue".

In an explosive interview with Bloomberg, Peter Hargreaves railed against Theresa May and ministers for failing to involve business in the talks, instead relying on civil servants "and not one of them has done anything of any worth in their lives".

Hargreaves said: "There isn’t one person on our Brexit team that has a clue. None of them are brave. None of them have done a deal. None of them know the art of the deal. And the amazing thing is they’ve never ever asked any of the people that really are great businessmen."

Read more: Brexit: City vents at EU's failure to reciprocate on no deal regime

He argued that the people in charge "don't want Brexit", noting that May had herself campaigned for REmain.

"We should have a team that want Brexit and want us out of the EU," he added, claiming the best option would be a no deal because "no deal would give us free trade with Europe because the three biggest economies in Europe, outside Britain, are huge exporters to the UK

"That’s Germany, France and Italy. And those three economies would absolutely demand free trade from the EU. I guarantee my entire wealth that we would get free trade."

In the same interview, Hargreaves said a Corbyn government would be "a great tonic to this country" because "a dose of Corbyn would tell everybody that socialism's bad".

"It would be unbelievably bad for this country during the period he was in but it would make people see sense and see that socialism is not a good way forward," he said.

Read more: Exclusive: Tory members plot Brexit rebellion at party conference

 

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