Brexit has driven the United Kingdom into a “sort of geriatric decline” and will be left in the dust in the not-too-distant future, famed British billionaire Guy Hands has claimed.
Hands, who is the chairman of the private equity firm Terra Firma, made the comments on a British podcast on Friday. Hands predicted that by 2030, the UK would be surpassed by Poland in wealth.
“I look at the UK and see that, in 2030, Poland will be healthier than we are,” Hands said, adding, “In 2040, we will be the poor man in Europe.”
Hands contends the UK should have never left the European Union (EU) and laments that British politicians aren’t talking about the possibility of going back.
The billionaire said Brexit has pushed the UK back to the 1970s, a time of strife for the country that included high inflation, high unemployment, frequent power outages and worker strikes.
However, Hands does see some benefits of Brexit, and says the UK should use the opportunity to reform its “extraordinarily complex” labor laws. He claims the legislation is a “nightmare” compared to other European countries.
“At the moment, the UK has only two choices if it wants to be competitive on the world stage,” Hands said. “Either it dismantles much of what political parties spent 30 years putting in place, or it goes back to Europe.”
Hands also complained that since the UK left the EU, it has “lost none of that bureaucracy, if anything we’ve actually increased it.”
Hands' statements reflect recent Labour Party projects that likewise predict Poland will overtake UK in economic prosperity by 2030, with Hungary and Romania surpassing it by 2040.
“I'm not comfortable with that, not comfortable with a trajectory that will soon see Britain overtaken by Poland,” said Labour Party leader Keir Starmer.