Credit Suisse boss says Brexit vote 'is due to bad education in UK'

A top investment banker has blamed Britain’s “chronic lack of investment in education” for the Brexit vote.

Tidjane Thiam, the boss of Credit Suisse, said the desperate levels of inequality he witnessed during his 15 years living in Britain led to the Leave campaign’s shock referendum triumph.

Speaking at a French business conference, the former Prudential chief executive recalled a visit to a Tower Hamlets school, where he discovered half of the children there only ate once a day.

“That’s something I had seen in Ivory Coast,” Mr Thiam, a former government minister in the West African country, said. “Something must be done at the national level so there aren’t so many people left behind.”

The banker said Britain should raise taxes to even out the impact of globalisation. “Something must be done at the national level so there aren’t so many people left behind so that the result of a national, democratic vote gives a result which is bad for the country in the medium term...

“[Brexit was] the price paid for a chronic lack of investment in education.”