Brexit isn’t going according to plan. We were promised utter devastation. The punishment was expected to be especially severe on those parts of the country that voted to Leave.
What little manufacturing that the North and Midlands had held on to was expected to collapse as barriers to trade went up. Vengeful Remainers were especially looking forward to the comeuppance of Sunderland — the city that delivered the knock-out blow to Britain’s membership of the EU. Good luck holding on to your Nissan car plant, suckers!
But five years on and Nissan is still here and expanding. A billion pounds is being ploughed into the production of electric vehicles and the batteries are included — Nissan’s partner, Envision AESC, will be building a ‘gigafactory’ to produce them. Vauxhall, meanwhile, is investing a hundred million into its Ellesmere Port plant. The factory will produce electric vans — for which demand is soaring. And there are reports that the British Government is working with Tesla to find a UK site for a major manufacturing centre.
Whatever one thinks of Brexit, these are developments that everyone should welcome.
But Britain wouldn’t be Britain without its moaning minnies. And there are two sets of people who aren’t happy: firstly, the hardcore Remainers for whom any assertion of the British national interest is pure jingoism; and secondly, the free market fundamentalists for whom any government intervention in the economy is a slippery slope to the Seventies, if not downright communism.
There’s a lot going on to raise their hackles. The Nissan and Vauxhall deals won’t have happened without the Government fronting-up a portion of the overall investment. Last week, the ministers moved to sweep away the EU rules on state aid that stand in the way of further state subsidies. Ministers also decided to keep the trade restrictions that help protect the UK steel industry from cheap imports. And then there’s the National Security and Investment Bill, which was introduced last year to protect British companies from “malicious” foreign investors.
Meanwhile, Labour is trying to get in on the Government’s act: Keir Starmer has unveiled a Buy British plan to bolster companies through public procurement.
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