Businesses leave as UK prepares for no-deal Brexit

Criticism as Leave-supporting Dyson moves HQ to Singapore

British electronics company Dyson is moving its head office from Britain to Singapore to be closer to his company's fastest-growing markets, as it announced on Wednesday – despite founder Sir James Dyson having been an enthusiastic supporter of Brexit.

He has previously said he was "enormously optimistic" about the effects of Brexit, and the company said the move to the country where it will build its new electric car was not related to Brexit or tax implications, and much of its product development would remain in South West England.

"We don't see any issues regarding Brexit," Chief Executive Jim Rowan said, adding that Dyson is a global technology company, whose manufacturing capacity, as well as the majority of its supply base, is in southeast Asia. He also said Dyson would continue to invest in its home market in Britain.

Last October Dyson announced it had picked Singapore to be the site of its first electric car plant, sparking criticism from some quarters that its Brexit-backing billionaire founder was not investing more in the UK.

Rowan said that the company, which broke through the 1 billion pound ($1.3 billion) barrier for annual profit for the first time in 2018, was experiencing the biggest demand for products such as air purifiers and hairdryers in Asia, where it already has a manufacturing base.

However, Conservative MP and Solicitor General Robert Buckland, whose constituency is not far from Dyson's British headquarters, said: "I'm disappointed to say the least that at this time a company led by a person who advocated Brexit has decided to relocate outside of this country."

On Wednesday, a senior British Cabinet minister said that businesses need to prepare for the possibility that the United Kingdom will leave the European Union at the end of March without an exit deal, as a growing number of companies begin to prepare for possible disruption by stockpiling goods or shifting operations overseas.

Last week Parliament threw out Prime Minister Theresa May's own proposed terms for Britain's EU exit, and so far attempts to find a replacement remain gridlocked. International Trade Secretary Liam Fox has warned that "no deal is a possibility." Most UK businesses fear this scenario because it will cause economic chaos by ripping up the trade rulebook and imposing tariffs, customs checks and other barriers between the UK and the EU, its biggest trading partner.

Japanese conglomerate Sony announced this week that it would be moving its European headquarters from London to Amsterdam to avoid potential post-Brexit customs complications, becoming just the latest of several major companies shifting its base to an EU member state. Sony said it did not however plan to move jobs from Britain.

AP contributed to the story.