Are you in or are you out? Chief executive of supply chain business

In or out? IN

Why?

No one can give me a sensible reason, a positive reason to leave the EU. It’s a case of people looking at this massive black hole and thinking “it will be alright somehow.” That’s not how you do business.

I’d like to be more international business. This is easier if we’re in Europe, as they negotiate international trade deals on our behalf.

If Europe wants to negotiate, you can’t just ignore Europe, even in massive countries like China. Britain is at the bottom of the list after the US and Europe in negotiations. Even though we are a big economy, we’re not anywhere near close to the 500m population of the EU.

I’m not saying EU is perfect – far from it, but the alternative is worse.

A lot of the pro-Leave campaign is being driven by jingoist nationalism. They have the mad fringe of British politics supporting them, people like Nigel Farage. Are we supposed to take these people seriously, here or in the wider world?

I ask my friends that are ‘outers’ what would Putin vote? He’s rubbing his hands together over the idea we would leave.

What would it mean for your business if a Brexit happened?

At Advanced Supply Chain we have spent time in Asia doing deals. There we talk about Britain, and it’s hard to believe but they don’t know much about us at all.

But they do know what Europe is. Being part of Europe’s free market, if they trade with us they are trading with the whole of Europe. That makes a difference to the deals right I can do.

We export to a huge car company’s assembly plant in China. They had started exporting from Birmingham, then opened plant in Hamburg in Germany. We export those parts from our office in Bradford from Hamburg.

Could I still do that if we were out of the EU? I know I can today. I don’t know that I could if we leave.