‘Brexit’ makes the decline of the European Union (EU) “practically inevitable”, George Soros has written in an op-ed for Project Syndicate. The leftist, open borders billionaire also praised German Chancellor Merkel’s gesture to open the EU’s border as “inspiring”. The aged billionaire blasted anti-EU parties as “xenophobic”. He suggested that in the wake of 56 per cent of people in Northern Ireland voting Remain, the country would break away from the UK and become a “united Ireland”. In 2008, a referendum saw voters in the Republic of Ireland reject the Lisbon Treaty, the EU’s constitution. The next year, the EU forced them to re-do the entire vote. Having warned that Britain leaving the EU was a “catastrophic scenario” that would make the disintegration of the EU “practically irreversible”, the hedge fund manager admitted that, “Britain eventually may or may not be relatively better off than other countries by leaving the EU”. In the days leading up to the UK’s referendum on EU membership, Soros warned Brits that a Leave vote would cause the pound to plunge. When the shock ‘Brexit’ vote sent Britain’s currency tumbling for a short while, before it recovered, Soros was one of the main financial beneficiaries.