The chairman of Big 4 grocer Asda, Lord Stuart Rose, has warned Brexit has been “catastrophic” for British businesses, and should consider a closer trading relationship with the EU.
Speaking to Nick Ferrari on LBC, Lord Rose stated that the country has “suffered” as a result of Brexit, and the trade between the UK and the EU was “not flowing smoothly”.
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“Its been catastrophic. Now the issue is of course that it’s been clouded by the other events. It’s been clouded by the war in Ukraine, it’s been clouded by the global slowdown, it’s been clouded by Covid, so nobody will really know,” Lord Rose said.
“This is going to be for economists to argue about over the next 40-50 years about what impact it had.
“We’ll never know, but trust me – I can smell it – we have suffered, we are the only economy I think in the G7… who has actually not yet recovered to pre-Covid levels. That tells you something.”
He added that he also welcomes discussion from Labour about a closer trading relationship with Europe.
He said: “It’s very interesting to see what happens because of course it’s all about posturing, it’s all about politics and it’s all about how people behave.
“At the end of the day, we will not go back into the EU. There has been talk about whether we go back into the single market.”
Last year, Lord Rose said one supermarket prices are likely to rise “immediately” as a result of the pound falling to a record low. He warned that a significant hike in interest rates over the next year could be “very, very unpleasant” for UK households.
3 Comments. Leave new
Most probably missing all the brown envelopes he got from the EU.
Where’s the outcry about the treatment of staff in the stores, still the lowest paid of the big 4 supermarkets, even with record profit levels and surging sales over the Xmas period.
He is missing the cheap labor