Investor George Soros: the disintegration of the EU is 'practically irreversible'

Billionaire investor George Soros has said that Britain's vote to leave the EU makes the break-up of the EU "practically irreversible", and that the result will damage Britain.

He said that Britain had the "best of all possible deals" with the EU, and that people who wanted to leave the EU "exploited the deteriorating refugee situation" to gain sympathy for their cause.

"Britain eventually may or may not be relatively better off than other countries by leaving the EU, but its economy and people stand to suffer significantly in the short to medium term," he wrote in an article for Project Syndicate.

"All of Europe, including Britain, would suffer from the loss of the common market and the loss of common values that the EU was designed to protect.

"Yet the EU truly has broken down and ceased to satisfy its citizens' needs and aspirations."

Soros made a huge amount of money in 1992 by betting against the British pound as it was withdrawn from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism.