Uncertainty over the future of Anglesey's Wylfa Newydd has been linked to Brexit.

Horizon Nuclear Power and Hitachi refused to qualify media reports claiming Hitachi has decided to halt further work on the £20 billion nuclear power plant.

Campaigners for a second referendum on Brexit claim industry insiders have told them the decision is a consequence both of the economic uncertainty caused by Brexit and by the way in which Brexit has destroyed capacity in British government – something which the Government’s “blindfold Brexit” deal would make a permanent fixture as rows and negotiations and renegotiations stretch into the decades to come.

Andrew Adonis, former chair of the National Infrastructure Commission and a leading supporter of the People’s Vote campaign, said: “As chair of the National Infrastructure Commission, I saw at first-hand how reliant on new nuclear this Government’s plans for green, secure energy were. Hitachi’s decision - the result of a civil service that is distracted by Brexit, a complete lack of political leadership and global investor nervousness - leaves that strategy in tatters.

“Coming the very next day after Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe stood next to Theresa May and endorsed her deal, this decision by one of his country’s biggest companies cancelling one of his country’s biggest UK. investments demonstrates just how empty that endorsement was. When it comes to infrastructure and investment we should judge partners by what they do, not what they feel obliged to say out of politeness.

“The fact that Hitachi’s share price rose by eight per cent on the news shows that the UK is now seen by markets as such a bad place to invest and that walking away from a massive existing investment is seen as better than sticking it out. That is the cost of Brexit.”