Job losses imminent as Jaguar Land Rover reverses Brexit pledge to stay in UK
Road to ruin: A Land Rover Discovery, presumably on its way to Slovakia, leaving a blasted wasteland where its Midlands manufacturing base once stood. Is this a vision of the future Theresa May is creating?
This is the worst possible moment for a company that promised to stay in the UK after Brexit to announce that it is removing even part of its business to an EU country.
On the same day Theresa May was trying to convince her MPs to be confident of a bright future after Brexit, Jaguar Land Rover signalled its own lack of such confidence by announcing the departure of its Land Rover Discovery manufacturing operation for Slovakia.
That’s right: Land Rover, an iconic British brand, will be made in Slovakia from now on – in a factory formerly said merely to “complement” the British operation.
The announcement signalled a u-turn for the company, which had claimed in 2016, shortly after the EU referendum, that it could expand its UK operation, creating more than 10,000 jobs.
This was according to the Daily Mail, mind. Draw your own conclusions as to the accuracy of that publication – but bear in mind that the Brexit-supporting rag did point out that the company’s offer was conditional.
Apparently the company’s chief executive, Dr Ralf Speth, had challenged the Government to invest £450 million in Midlands infrastructure to help secure the investment.
So the company’s decision could be doubly embarrassing for the Conservatives, as it implies that their government couldn’t be bothered to invest in the country in the way business demanded.
Perhaps Tweezer spent the money on… I don’t know… a big bribe for 10 MPs from Northern Ireland instead, so she can push on with her disastrous plans for leaving the EU? Just a thought.
JLR announced last month that it was laying off 1,000 workers due to Brexit uncertainty. Now, we are told hundreds more agency workers will be joining them on – God help them! – Universal Credit.
So: No Tory government investment; massive redundancies; and the loss of an iconic brand – all due to Theresa May’s handling of Brexit.
And Tweezer is desperate to continue driving us down this road to ruin.
Source: Land Rover Discovery model moved to Slovakia from the UK – BBC News
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This is only the beginning. Soon large parts of the country will be economic wastelands.
I am not surprised by this as this process has been going on for over forty years now. Capital will always chase higher profit margins and cheap Labour means more profit.
The other minor point is that incomes are still falling, with less money in people’s pockets sales are falling as witnessed by the pound shop debacle, if your market is shrinking at home, where will they find the profit motive to stay.
This is all down to free trade, free market ideology and has very little to do with the EU, although granted it doesn’t does add to the incentives to move elsewhere which has happened anyway. This trend will not be halted by staying in the EU, it didn’t stop the others like Dyson from doing what he called madness – because it ruins the very market place that these people want to buy their products.
Maybe if Cameron hadn’t thrown his dolly out of the pram and invoked article 50 the day after the vote we kwould know where we were and you wouldn’t be posting this although sales of the discovery have dropped, so maybe like fiat did when lada seat and foster started making its out of date vehicles this is much the same.