Jacob Rees-Mogg says we should ignore the CBI on Brexit: 'They have got everything wrong in their history'
Leading Brexiteer weighs into row with business over the economic impact of leaving the EU
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Your support makes all the difference.Jacob Rees-Mogg has urged the government to ignore the voice of business leaders as they have “got everything wrong in the whole of their history”.
The leading Tory Brexiteer said "vested interests" were colouring the views of major firms, which wanted to protect themselves from tariffs on their goods.
His comments are the latest in an ongoing row between Brexiteers and business leaders, which hit fever pitch when Boris Johnson reportedly declared "f*** business" after warnings over the consequences of a no-deal exit.
Speaking at a Brexit panel event hosted by The Independent, Mr Rees-Mogg said: “By the business community, you mean the EU-funded CBI (Confederation of British Industry).
“They’ve got everything wrong in the whole of their history.
"I wouldn’t take any notice of them.”
Pressed on what major firms might think, the North East Somerset MP said: “BMW doesn’t want 10% tariffs applied to BMW cars coming into the UK.
“The UK is the biggest market for German-made cars - it’s 50% bigger than the American market and the German companies had a profit warning when tariffs were threatened on the Chinese market, which is their third market.
"There’s huge vested interest from the German car manufacturers in keeping us in the European Union, which inevitably colours their view and their decision making.”
It comes after former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith came under fire for an extraordinary attack on the CBI, where he compared their Brexit warning to the appeasement of Nazi Germany in the 1930s.
“The same bleak propaganda has been pumped out by the same people for more than two years, yet the forecasts of disaster have never materialised,” he wrote in a newspaper article.
When contacted on Mr Duncan Smith by The Independent, the CBI said: "Hasn't he got better things to do?"
The organisation receives 0.6% of its funding from the EU, which is for economic surveys, in line with other equivalent bodies in Europe.
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