"In recent weeks, confidence from investors has been shaken. Debates in the UK parliament are monitored closely, and with mounting alarm, in boardrooms around the world.

The dire prospect that we could tolerate trading with our largest and closest market on WTO terms — the most rudimentary that exist between any nations on earth — is bewildering to them.

And when hundreds of millions of pounds are having to be diverted by companies from productive investments into defending themselves against the risk of a no-deal exit from the European Union — through piling up stocks, renting warehouses and planning shutdowns of production — investors have every right to object."