BRITISH firms could face a Brexit backlash from continental trading partners if the UK votes to leave the EU, a leading businessman has warned.

Ricardo chief executive David Shemmans has warned that British firms could be closed out of European trade deals and partnerships if the country turns its back on the EU this week.

Mr Shemmans also warned that the uncertainty surrounding what a Brexit future might look like could also spark a recession and said he struggled to see what benefits leaving would bring for British industry.

The 50-year-old was speaking following a visit to his century-old global engineering, strategic and environmental consultancy by Chancellor George Osborne.

Mr Shemmans warned that leaving the EU could cause serious disruptions for his own firm, which employs 700 staff at Shoreham Technical Centre.

The chief executive highlighted concerns he had that Brexit could jeopardise the £5million annual EU funding his firm received, impose restrictions on Ricardo staff coming to and from offices in Germany and the Czech Republic and limit further recruitment from Europe’s large “talent pool” of engineering expertise.

He said: “We have a lot of European collaborations, we work with BMW, work with the French car industry, we work with Italian car manufacturers and who knows what backlash there might be, an anti-UK response, a pro-buy from Europe, we could find ourselves closed out.”

Mr Shemmans also warned about the damaging impact of the uncertainty caused by a leave vote at Thursday’s referendum.

He said: “I always say that uncertainty is the biggest enemy to business, it stops people investing, restricts capital investment, overseas investment is deterred from investing in the UK and just from a retail side people are put off buying a car, all this creates a potential for recession.

“We have got out of the 2008 recession, the economy is growing, now is not the time to put a lot of uncertainty into the business world, that’s the uncertainty that can create a recession.

“Uncertainty makes it very difficult to plan, not knowing what the trade barriers might be, not knowing what trade agreements there might be, the strength of the pound and what happens there, it could impact where we put people around the world.

“We will find a way to cope whatever the outcome but it seems to be an unnecessary risk to be taking at this time.”