Nick Leslau, chairman of Prestbury Investments, nailed his colours to the leave mast in a column for Estates Gazette at the beginning of June calling for the volume on Brexit to be turned down.
He said: “For me, the argument is simple. The EU is utterly undemocratic. Who can name their MEP? Who knows what the 25,000 highly paid lobbyists in Brussels funded by big business are lobbying for?
“We know that European politics is inherently corrupt, so why do we just accept it? Secret deals are being done daily by arrogant, unaccountable politicians with too many private agendas and I really don’t like it.”
After being hit with “a huge number of messages” after the column was published, Leslau added: “‘Better the devil you know’ is generally the rhetoric of ignorance and lack of ambition.”
Richard Tice, chief executive of Quidnet Capital Partners, argued that the UK was “the greatest nation on earth” during a Britpop v Eurotrash debate at Ellandi’s rockretals conference earlier this month.
He said that the country should “fundamentally control our own laws and our own borders”.
Concerns that global corporations could relocate from London and hit the occupational market in the event of a vote to leave was also addressed by Tice.
He said: “In the past four months, when the polls have been close, global corporations such as HSBC have said they will stay. If it was such as concern they would not have done so.”
