Lord Sugar: If Jeremy Corbyn becomes Prime Minister 'we should all move to China'

Businessman and TV star says Britain should be 'left to rot' if the new Labour leader enters Downing Street

Lord Sugar said Mr Corbyn's approach to housing would damage London's property market (Getty)

Lord Sugar has launched a scathing attack on Jeremy Corbyn by saying “we should all go to China” and leave Britain to “rot” if he is elected Prime Minister in 2020.

In his first comments discussing Labour since he quit the party in May, the businessman and star of The Apprentice said he “cannot visualise” the new Labour leader as an international statesman talking to the likes of Barack Obama and Angela Merkel.

He warned that a Corbyn-led government would take Britain “back about 40 years in time” but admitted he did not know what his polices were.

Lord Sugar, who resigned four days after Ed Miliband led Labour to its worst election defeat in more than 30 years due to the party’s “anti-enterprise” policies, claimed Mr Corbyn’s approach to the housing crisis would “be the thing that shuts down” London’s booming housing market.

“He and his policies would be the thing that shuts the whole thing down,” he told the Evening Standard.

“If they ever got anywhere near electing him and him being the Prime Minister then I think we should all move to China or somewhere like that and let this place just rot.”

He was speaking as he unveiled a luxury apartment building in central London – his first residential property venture.

Lord Sugar has donated generously to Labour in the past and served as the Government’s official “enterprise champion” under Gordon Brown. He also aimed criticism at Sadiq Khan, Labour’s London candidate for London Mayor, describing him and Mr Corbyn as “Batman and Robin” but said he stood a “very good chance” of being elected next May.

“I don’t know the fellow and what he stands for but certainly if you want the market to stop then you’ve got Batman and Robin in those two,” he said of Mr Khan and Mr Corbyn. “If they ever got into power that would create a lot of problems.”

Earlier he was asked by ITV’s Good Morning Britain programme whether he thought Mr Corbyn would be good for business. “No, not really,” Lord Sugar replied. “ I consider myself an ordinary member of the public at times and up until about three or four months ago I’d never heard of him.

“He’s been voted in but my personal opinion is I cannot visualise someone like him talking to Angela Merkel or Barack Obama or Francois Hollande – I just can’t. Would the public like him talking to those people, representing us as the prime minister of this country? I don’t think so.”

He added: “I don’t know what his policies are. What I’ve gleaned so far is he wants to go back about 40 years in time when perhaps there was a need for protection of the oppressed population.”