CBI accuses Vote Leave of wilfully misrepresenting majority of UK business

michael Gove Andrew Marr Show BBC

Carolyn Fairbairn, CBI Director-General, said: “It is wilfully misleading to suggest that a large proportion of businesses want to leave the European Union – every business survey bar none, across all sectors and of all different sizes of business, shows a majority wanting to stay in the EU.

“80 per cent of the CBI’s members have said their businesses would be more successful within the EU, and only 5 per cent want to leave. Organisations representing sectors as diverse as manufacturers, car makers, aerospace and defence to financial services, tech start-ups, farmers and healthcare, across the length and breadth of the UK, paint a similar picture.

“In a world of growing protectionism and economic uncertainty, it is cloud cuckoo land to believe that the UK could easily walk into free trade agreements with the EU if it left the single market, and businesses know this.”

Image: Pete Maclaine / Shutterstock.com