British entrepreneurs are on track to start up a record number of businesses this year, ignoring the doom and gloom forecasts from pro-Remain economists in the run up to the EU referendum.
91,618 new businesses have been formed in the Greater London area alone so far this year, according to StartUpBritain, putting the country as a whole on track to smash last year’s 608,110 new businesses across the country.
A breakdown of the figures shows there were 2,761 firms launched in Tower Hamlets so far this year; 4,464 in Islington, 8,057 in Hackney, and a massive 9,329 in Westminster, which tops the list of boroughs in terms of new start-ups, City AM reported.
Matt Smith, director of StartUpBritain, said: “It is fantastic that the number of new start-ups founded this year looks so robust, in London and across the UK.
“Entrepreneurship is a personal endeavour by people who are passionate about turning ideas into action, so it is unsurprising that business formation levels continue to rise despite any future uncertainties.”
The figure suggests that entrepreneurs are relaxed about the possibility of a British exit from the European Union, despite the gloomy economic forecasts being peddled by various institutions including the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Treasury.
The report comes as EU leaders attempted to pour yet more scorn on the prognosis for Britain’s economy after a Brexit.
In an interview with German paper Bild, the president of the European Council, Donald Tusk, warned that Britain could be shut out of the single market for seven years if the country opted to walk away from EU membership.
Following a negotiation predicted to take two years, “Every single one of the 27 member states as well as the European parliament would have to approve the overall result. That would take at least five years, and I’m afraid without any guarantee of success,” he said.
“So, Brexiteers, you want the end of civilisation, do you? Well, do you? Huh?” pic.twitter.com/iLOf3N9cGT
— Daniel Hannan (@DanHannanMEP) June 13, 2016
But he was widely mocked for taking Project Fear to hitherto unexplored levels, when he went on to warn: “As a historian I fear Brexit could be the beginning of the destruction of not only the EU but also Western political civilization in its entirety.”
Martin Durkin, the documentary maker behind Brexit: The Movie commented: “If Donald Tusk’s ‘Western Civilisation’ requires us to give up our democratic rights, then I’m happy to see it fall.”
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