Leading Brexit proponent and founder of Wetherspoons, Tim Martin, has slammed coronavirus restrictions brought in to stymy the spread of the Omicron variant as “arbitrary” and says a “lockdown by stealth” will wipe out profits.
JD Wetherspoons gave a market update telling investors “uncertainty, and the introduction of radical changes of direction by the government, make predictions for sales and profits hazardous”.
The company which pioneered table ordering services in pubs, reported soaring sales prior to the emergence of Covid-19, suffered a £105.4m loss in the year to July 2020 followed by a record £195m deficit the year after.
Boris Johnson with Tim Martin
Henry Nicholls
Like most businesses, JD Wetherspoons had been hoping to come back from the impat of the pandemic this year but warned investors that the ‘Plan B’ of coronavirus measures brought in by the government would make business “loss-making”.
Tim Martin had previously backed Boris Johnson during the Brexit era, though has now become quite an outspoken antagonist of the currently embattled Boris Johnson, with Martin stating the hospitality industry was not a “significant” source of outbreaks of Covid-19.
“The typical British pub, contrary to received opinion in academia, is usually a bastion of social distancing,” he said on Monday.
“However, the repeated warnings and calls for restrictions, mainly from Sage [committee] members and academics, combined with arbitrary changes of direction from the government, invariably at short notice, affect customer sentiment and trade.
“In effect, the country appears to be heading towards a lockdown by stealth."