Sir James Dyson calls for the UK to leave the EU single market

Sir James Dyson

The call comes despite economists’ warnings that leaving the single market could cost the UK billions of pounds a year, City AM reports.

But Dyson, who had been a vocal supporter of the Leave camp, told the BBC yesterday that the UK “should be absolutely out” of the single market.

He added that this would give Britain freedom to determine its future, its on laws as well as trade deals with other countries.

Think tank the Institute for Fiscal last month put the cost of Britain losing its membership to the EU single market at £75bn in today’s money, or four per cent of gross domestic product by 2030.

The figure was based on long-term estimates from other forecasters, including the London School of Economic’s Centre for Economic Performance and the National Institute for Economic and Social Research (NIESR).

“They [the EU] are not going to block British imports, and if they did put an import duty on, the import duty is a comparatively insignificant amount, compared with currency fluctuation,” Dyson said yesterday.

“The last thing they are going to do is impose an import duty — it is suicidal for them.

“I am not worried about that at all. We get on very well with Europe, we export to Europe and it is 16 per cent of our [Dyson’s] global market. Europe is 15 per cent of general trade throughout the world, so we are quite nicely balanced.

“There are very exciting markets outside of Europe — the Far East is expanding at a phenomenal rate.”