LONDON (AP) — The chief executive of Airbus has warned it could move its U.K. operations out of the country in the event there is a departure from the European Union without a deal.

Tom Enders issued a sharply worded statement Thursday, flatly warning that Brexit is threatening to destroy a century of development in the United Kingdom, a global leader in aviation. He declared that the country now stands at a precipice.

Enders urged the country not to "listen to the Brexiteers' madness which asserts that, because we have huge plants here, we will not move and we will always be here. They are wrong."

Airbus has more 14,000 employees in Britain with a further roughly 110,000 working in jobs supported by Airbus programs.