A British billionaire has announced he is applying for German citizenship in case he needs to flee the UK, calling the country an 'uncomfortable place for Jews'.
Sir Michael Moritz, a venture capitalist, investor and author, has claimed Britain is 'far more hostile than the US' towards its Jewish community and that his application for a German passport is an 'insurance policy'.
The 71-year-old, who was born in Wales and has written about his family's experience under the Nazis, said 'antisemitism is always in the air' and there are modern parallels to the persecution his family faced in 1930s Germany.
Sir Michael cited the attack on Manchester's Heaton Park synagogue last year on October 2, saying: 'I have cousins who live less than half a mile from the Heaton Park synagogue.'
He also told the BBC that there were 'kids in north-west London who no longer wear their school blazers' to avoid being identified as going to a Jewish school, and that it was 'all these anecdotes that strike home more than anything else'.
The Welsh billionaire, who already holds UK and US passports, said that a German passport would be an 'insurance policy' so that he could flee the US or UK in a way some of his ancestors weren't able to under Hitler's persecution.
Sir Michael, who made his money by investing in companies such as Google and Yahoo in the early 2000s, wrote a memoir called 'Auslander' (meaning foreigner in German) detailing his family's treatment under the Nazis.
His paternal grandparents were among the millions of Jewish people killed during the Holocaust.
British billionaire Sir Michael Moritz, 71, said the UK is 'an uncomfortable place for Jews'
A family photo showing Sir Michael (pictured right, on his mother's knee). Michael has written about his family's persecution under the Nazis
Two of Sir Michael's relatives were photographed by the Gestapo as they were forced onto buses taking them to their deaths.
His parents managed to flee Germany and settled in Cardiff, where Sir Michael grew up - but said he always felt like an outsider.
He spent most of his career living in California, which he said is 'far less hostile' than Britain for Jews.
Sir Michael said of his application for German citizenship: 'I think it's the one place in Europe where what happened [nearly] 100 years ago forms a very central part of the educational system, so you have generations that have been reared with that as part of their consciousness.'
Sir Michael's comments follows swathes of Britain's billionaires also fleeing Britain - but for financial reasons after Labour's tax raids on the wealthy.
Rachel Reeves' October budget has been blamed for driving the exodus by abolishing the non-dom tax regime and imposing inheritance tax on the worldwide assets of foreigners who have lived in Britain for more than 10 years.
Those who are known to have left include Nassef Sawiris, the Egyptian co-owner of Aston Villa FC, who has shifted his tax residency to Italy - according to legal documents revealed in April.
Brothers Ian and Richard Livingstone, who oversee a £9billion property empire in the UK and abroad, an online casino and a plush Monte Carlo hotel, have quit Britain for Monaco.
Another billionaire developer, Malawi-born Asif Aziz - owner of the former London Trocadero on Piccadilly Circus - moved his tax residency to Abu Dhabi at the end of last year.
Sir Michael told the BBC that the UK was a less attractive place to do business when compared with the US and China, and that the UK lacked some expertise to nurture new technology in the way Silicon Valley companies have.