BRITAIN seems to be heading for a “hard Brexit” that could see more jobs moved abroad, a market analyst has said.

Alex Dryden, global market strategist for JP Morgan Asset Management, also warned that the “political storm” which has hit the UK and US could hit mainland Europe harder next year.

He was among the high-profile speakers at the second Entrepreneurs Conference, held at the BIC by Poole accountancy firm Inspire.

The event, for an invited audience of 150 speakers, heard from a succession of high profile business people and commentators.

Mr Dryden looked at several seismic political events including Brexit and the election of Donald Trump – pointing out that when Mr Trump announced his candidacy, Kim Kardashian had shorter odds on winning the White House.

On leaving the European Union, he said a “soft Brexit” would mean an arrangement like that granted to Switzerland or Norway, who had access to the single European market. At the other end of the scale was the prospect of doing business with mainland Europe under World Trade Organisation terms, which were “not particularly generous”.

“It’s deemed a hard Brexit scenario, where the chances of a recession are maximised and more jobs are going to move outside as people relocate to get the most favourable terms from the EU,” he said.

“It looks like we’re going down a hard Brexit path rather than a softer Brexit path.

“The politicians in charge now, Brexiteers such as Boris Johnson, have said if people wanted to vote to leave, you probably voted to leave for three reasons.”

These were gaining control of legislation, stopping payments into the EU budget, and stopping free movement of labour, he said.

“In a soft Brexit scenario, none of those situations are achieved,” he said.

“It seems the government has decided we’re going to take a hard Brexit path.”

The process for leaving the EU after the government triggers Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty is intended to take two years.

But Mr Dryden said reports often omitted the fact that the treaty said the timetable could be extended indefinitely if the parties cannot agree.

He said the Treaty of Rome devoted only half a page to the prospect that a member state might want to leave the EU.

“The idea that we would be able to do this in two years is completely barmy,” he said.

Mr Dryden said analyst had been “constantly surprised” at how positive much of the economic data had been since June.

“I’m glad the economic data has been surprisingly good so far this year but I think in 2017 and into 2018 that we’re going to see some of the slowdown,” he said.

“Inflation will creep up to about four per cent and the Bank of England will do nothing about it, because they can’t.”

He said the “political storm” seen in the US and UK was likely to spread to the EU. He listed a string of hard-right politicians who were attracting significant support in EU countries which are holding elections in 2017.

“One in four Germans are thinking of voting for a far right, euro-sceptic party in the heartland of the EU,” he said.

He pointed that in Britain and the US, unemployment was less than five per cent.

“Most people have a job. Things are not too bad. Now the political storm is heading for a region that has double digit unemployment rates,” he said.

“I don’t know whether this will lead to good political change or bad political change.”

Mr Dryden said Donald Trump could be more pragmatic in government because of the restrictions the US system places on a president. “A lot of the most extreme policies that he’s been talking about, he needs to get them through other branches of government first,” he said.