butters
High on a Hill
- Joined
- Jul 2, 2009
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https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/24/intl_business/richard-branson-new-brexit-vote/
things are falling apart and the pm should have ALL options open
things are falling apart and the pm should have ALL options open
"The truth is that the people's views are never static. They evolve. And they can change. I am not alone in feeling many UK people have changed their minds," he wrote. "The UK Government must now put all options on the table, and giving the people a final say must be one of these options."
Branson's blog post went up on Friday, the day before hundreds of thousands of marchers filled the streets of London calling for a new vote. So far Prime Minister Theresa May has flatly rejected the idea of a new vote. But on Sunday Chancellor Philip Hammond, one of her most senior Cabinet ministers, said that the idea of a new vote was a "coherent proposition" that deserves consideration, although he said he doubted it could get a majority of votes in Parliament.
Like many business leaders in the United Kingdom, Branson has been a long-time opponent of Brexit. Before the original vote he called the idea of Brexit "pretty catastrophic for long-term future of Great Britain" and a "financial disaster."
"Nearly three years after the 2016 referendum, that evidence tells us that few, if any, of the original assumptions about leaving the EU were correct," he wrote. "Thousands of jobs in Britain have been lost already, with many more redundancies [job cuts] on the horizon as manufacturers react to the looming threat of tariffs and supply chain disruptions. More than a trillion pounds in assets are being moved to Dublin, Frankfurt, Paris, and other European cities as financial institutions begin to execute their contingency plans."