French economist quits Labour advisor role due to weak referendum campaign

Well-known French economist Thomas Piketty has walked away from his role as a Labour party advisor after referring to the party's campaign during the United Kingdom's European Union referendum as "very weak".

The Labour party is in a full-blown crisis at the moment as a majority of leader Jeremy Corbyn's shadow cabinet resigned their posts following the leave vote victory anad his subsequent sacking of Hilary Benn. Corbyn lost a no-confidence vote yesterday among the party's MPs but still counts on the support of the party members.

Piketty, a Nobel Prize winner, is one of the most famous left-wing economists in the world. He shot to fame in his 2013 book "Capital in the Twenty-First Century," which focuses on wealth and income inequality.

Last year he joined Labour's economic advisory council after Corbyn's claim to cut the austerity implemented by David Cameron and the Conservative government.

But it seems that the Brexit vote — combined with the strong possibility that Corbyn may not even be a Labour leader by the next General Election — proved too much for Piketty.

Mixed reactions have come out in the wake of the Brexit vote, with the value of the pound vastly decreasing against both the dollar and the euro, as well as businesses such as Vodafone threatening to move their operations overseas. However, some have pointed to the current upturn in the markets as a good omen, including Credit Suisse.