Profits at JD Wetherspoon sunk 19 per cent in the six months to the end of January, its latest results show.
The pub chain, run by prominent Brexiteer Tim Martin, blamed a rise in labour costs, interest payments, utility bills, repairs and depreciation for the fall.
Martin is currently touring 100 of his 900 pubs, talking to punters about the merits of leaving the EU without a deal on 29 March, and used the results announcement to express his concern that Brexit would be reversed.
He said: “Although the public voted to leave, the majority of ‘the establishment’, including most MPs, most universities, the Bank of England, the CBI and media organisations such as The Times, the Financial Times and The Economist favoured ‘Remain’.
“The result has been a barrage of negative economic forecasts from those quarters, predicting that the UK will go to hell in a handcart without a ‘deal’ with the EU – which will effectively tie the country into EU membership and taxation, yet without representation.
“The doomsters ignore the most powerful nexus in economics, between democracy and prosperity – and the fact that the EU is becoming progressively less democratic, as it pursues an ‘ever-closer union’, for which there is no public consensus.”
“Previous referendum results on major constitutional issues have always been respected in the UK, but if parliament votes either for Theresa May’s ‘deal’ which keeps us in the EU by the back door or to remain in the EU, the referendum result will not have been respected. This may well have significantly adverse economic consequences, as the country turns in on itself to endure months, or years, of stifling constitutional argument.”
The company announced last year that it will take a stand against EU based alcoholic drinks, ditching German wheat beers and Champagne in favour of UK and non-EU drinks.
They announced in September that Jägermeister and French brandy would also be shelved in exchange for similar non-EU products.
