Sir Rocco Forte: 'No point in delaying Brexit'

A no-deal Brexit is better than a bad deal, and Theresa May's is a bad deal according to hotel tycoon Sir Rocco Forte.

Ahead of a series of Brexit votes in parliament this week Sir Rocco is urging MPs to reject both the prime minister's deal and the option of delaying Brexit.

"There's no point delaying, Europe has said the deal is the deal, it's on the table and we're not going to change it, so what do we do? Are we going to delay? What's it going to do? if we take no deal off the table, we're finished. We have no negotiating position," he says.

Sir Rocco Forte is the son of Lord Forte - who built what was once known as the Trust House Forte Group, which at one point owned Travelodge, Little Chef, Happy Eater and a majority stake in the Savoy Hotel.

That empire was bought in the 1990s and Sir Rocco has since left the Little Chef and Travelodge sector of the hospitality industry to pursue the luxury end of the market, with plans for new luxury Five-Star hotels in Asia and Europe.

'Heads above parapets'

The list of business owners and leaders who think leaving the EU without a deal is nothing to fear is a short one.

Engineering billionaire Sir James Dyson, JCB chairman Lord Bamford, and City hedge fund managers like Sir Paul Marshall and Sir Crispin Odey are some of a relatively rare breed.

But not as rare as people think according to Sir Rocco.

"I'm not sure I'm in a minority, there's a lot of people who think like me in the business world who don't put their heads above the parapet for fear of damaging their businesses," he says.

He admits a no-deal Brexit may cause some short term problems but insists that business and the UK economy as a whole should focus on the long term.

The hotel industry employs tens of thousands of EU nationals

"It may cause some short term disruption although I think that's been hugely exaggerated…This not about what happens this year or next year, it's about what happens in the long term and this country can thrive if its outside of the constraints of the EU."

Most people in the hospitality industry have one major concern. Immigration - or the potential lack of it.

Arriving at Sir Roccos' Brown's hotel, the majority of staff on the door on the front desk who greet you are from the EU.

There are 2.3 million EU nationals living and working in the UK at a time when unemployment is at its lowest level since 1975. Is he not worried that without access to EU workers his business will suffer?

"Everybody assumes that because we're going to control immigration, that immigration is going to stop," he says.

"It isn't going to stop and it won't stop. We had 270,000 immigrants from outside the EU last year who all came in through a process and procedure, there's no reason why Europeans shouldn't come in through the same way."

'Serious problem'

That is not the position of the majority of those in the hotel business. The British Hospitality Association estimates that 700,000 EU nationals work in the industry in the UK - some 15% of the total workforce. Rising to over 30% in some parts of the UK.

Without access to EU workers in the future, the industry has a "serious problem".

Sir Rocco Forte is indeed a rare specimen in the business world. A UK educated, British citizen of European descent who does business in the hospitality industry who doesn't worry about a no-deal Brexit.

But he is not a lone business voice warning about the problems involved in delaying Brexit.

To be clear - most business owners and trade bodies hate the idea of a no deal Brexit.

But most also hate the idea of a Brexit delay and see it as an extension of the purgatory of uncertainty that has starved the UK of investment for the last two and a half years.

As for Rocco Forte, he will continue to invest in his hotel chain. But as his critics will point out... those plans don't currently include the UK.

Only two of the 14 he owns are in the UK. He has said he is looking at smaller hotel formats for affluent smaller cities, like Cambridge, but his major expansion plans are outside the UK - so why should we listen to him?

Sir Rocco insists he has plenty at stake in the UK's future.

"This hotel we're sitting in, Brown's hotel, is very important profit earner to my group.

"The Balmoral hotel in Edinburgh is a very big profit earner for my group. I don't want to damage that.

"My wealth, what there is of it, is based on the success of this business. If this business isn't successful I'm not a wealthy man anymore. So of course I care and of course I'm involved," he says.