The Remainer businessman labelled Brexit an “unmitigated disaster for Great Britain” following three years of negotiations and rejected deals by the House of Commons. Mr Branson said Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal should go to the public so they can vote on “specific facts rather than promises”. He added the difficulties of leaving the EU must be “clear to people by now”.

Speaking to Sky News, Mr Branson said: “There’s no question that no deal would be an unmitigated disaster for Great Britain and wouldn’t have been great for Europe.

“Personally I think whatever is negotiated should go to the public for a final decision.

“When the original referendum was done, I think all the difficulties of leaving Europe were not clear to people.

“I think it must be clear to people by now.

“In an ideal world I’d love to see whatever deal has been negotiated go to a second referendum and then we put it to bed once and for all.

“But at least people are voting on specific facts on the table rather than promises which have been proven not to have come true.

Mr Branson has issued previous warnings about a no deal Brexit after claiming the UK not securing an agreement with Brussels would be “devastating” for his business.

But Mr Johnson is working hard to secure a deal with Brussels as EU diplomats have said a deal is likely by his “do or die” pledge of October 31.

“A hard Brexit will result in the freight that was getting from Europe that we put on Virgin Atlantic going to America, just disappearing.”

Fresh President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel expect a Brexit deal to be concluded in time for leaders to rubber-stamp the agreement at Thursday’s crunch EU leaders summit.

The influential EU leaders said negotiating teams are on the brink of finalising a deal based on Boris Johnson’s plans for Northern Ireland.

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Speaking in France, they shared the positive message with talks between UK and EU officials expected to run into the early hours in order to have a draft legal text ready for leaders on Thursday.

Mr Macron told reporters: “I hope, I think that a deal is just being finalised and we’re going to be able to work on that tomorrow.”

Mrs Merkel added: “What we heard from Brussels could be worse news, of course, we’re going to wait what Michel Barnier and his team have achieved with British counterparts.

“We always said that we cannot be taken hostage by this question.”

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