Ryanair has confirmed that it will be basing all 50 of its new planes outside of the UK, citing the British decision to leave the European Union as the reason for the move.

The Irish airline also slashed its planned annual growth rate for UK flights from 15% this year to 6% for 2017. That will amount to five million fewer seats to and from Britain.

CEO Michael O'Leary (pictured) said:

“We were planning to base up to 10 new aircraft in the UK, now the planes will instead be based in Germany, Poland, Italy and eastern Europe.

“There’s an awful lot of rubbish being talked over [in the UK] about ‘oh, there’s no [Brexit] effect’. As fares get cheaper, more aircraft will be moved away from the UK over the next few years.”

O'Leary has also described the politicians working on making Brexit official as "headless chickens".

Ryanair does, however, still plan to create 450 jobs at London's Stansted Airport, supported by the EU Training Centre it opened there in May as part of near-€1.24bn investment in Britain.