Guernsey Press

Conservatives are no longer fit to run the country - Hands

THE Conservative party is no longer fit to run the country and is taking the UK towards economic collapse, according to Guernsey resident and long-term party supporter Guy Hands, pictured.

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Guy Hands. (31403955)

‘It’s got to move on from fighting its own internal wars,’ Mr Hands said, ‘and actually focus on what needs to be done in the economy.’

The multi-millionaire investor, who owns private equity company Terra Firma, as well as the St Pierre Park and Fermain Valley hotels through the family’s Hand Picked Hotels group, claimed the current volatility of the UK economy was a long time in the making and was not simply the result of recent instability.

He said ‘mistakes made in the last six years’ had ‘frankly, put this country on a path to be the sick man of Europe’.

In an interview with the BBC’s Today programme on Radio 4, a few hours before the way was clear for Rishi Sunak to take over as Prime Minister, the former president of the Oxford University Conservative Association said the party could not make Brexit work other than through an ‘extreme Thatcherism’ which would require a form of low tax, low benefit government that was evidently unacceptable to the British electorate.

He gave credit to Liz Truss for trying to achieve it, but said it was doomed to failure.

‘Once you accept that you can’t actually do that, then the Brexit that was done is completely hopeless and will only drive Britain into a disastrous economic state,’ he said.

He called for the party to ‘own up to the mistakes they made in how they negotiated Brexit’ and said the only hope for the economy now would be for a new leader with ‘the intellectual capability and the authority’ to renegotiate it.

‘Without that, the economy is, frankly, doomed,’ he said.

He predicted taxes would steadily rise and benefits and services would steadily decline, while interest rates would increase, all of which could ultimately lead to a bail out from the International Monetary Fund.

Mr Hands said it was in his own financial interests to speak positively about the UK economy, as that was where most of his money was invested, but honesty compelled him to draw attention to the 17% of children who were malnourished through poverty, and the increasing number of people who had become unable to service their mortgage repayments.

Mr Hands came out against Brexit shortly before the referendum vote in 2016.

He spoke at an event in the island that spring, where he outlined his support for the UK remaining part of the EU.