Dept of I-told-you-so: Brexit means Jaguar Land Rover may leave the UK altogether
Road to ruin: A Land Rover Discovery, presumably on its way to Slovakia, leaving a blasted wasteland where its Midlands manufacturing base once stood.
The last time I wrote about Jaguar Land Rover was in June, when the company announced it was moving Land Rover production to Slovakia due to Brexit.
I suggested that Theresa May was driving us down the road to ruin.
How much further down that road had we travelled last week, when the same firm announced that it could not tell whether it would be able to continue manufacturing any vehicles on time and on budget, post-Brexit?
JLR boss Ralf Speth said that, with six months left until the UK decouples from the EU, he and other company directors would have to make decisions that could not be reversed; decisions that could be hugely harmful for the UK.
So now, two years after the company said it may expand its UK operation, adding 10,000 jobs, it is saying multiple tens of thousands of jobs may be lost.
When my article came out in June, commenters wrote in to criticise me, saying the Slovakia move was to make way for modifications to the JLR plant in Solihull and no harm was likely to the UK economy.
I wonder what those people will say now?
The Chief executive of Britain’s biggest car manufacturer has warned that “tens of thousands” of jobs could be lost if the UK doesn’t get the “right Brexit deal”.
The boss of Jaguar Land Rover said he had no idea whether his plants would be able to operate after Britain leaves the EU on March 29 next year.
Ralf Speth told a conference in Birmingham that JLR had lost a thousand jobs as a result of diesel policy “and those numbers will be counted in the tens of thousands if we do not get the right Brexit deal”.
“Brexit is due to happen on the 29th March next year.
“Currently I do not even know if any of our manufacturing facilities in the UK will be able to function on the 30th,” Speth said.
“It is thousands of pounds cheaper to produce vehicles for instance in eastern Europe than in Solihull and what decisions will I be forced to make if Brexit means not merely that costs go up but that we cannot physically build cars on time and on budget in the UK?” he said.
He warned: “Six months from Brexit and uncertainty means that many companies are being forced to make decisions about their businesses that will not be reversed, whatever the outcome, just to survive.”
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I wonder how other manufacturers will be affected. Perhaps Norton Motorcycles (championed by George Osborne) will relocate to Malaysia alongside Triumph (the Meriden workers co-op having been closed by Thatcher) ? At least we’ll still be able to import Royal Enfields (that used to be made in Redditch) from India, but no one will be able to afford them. Weep for the British motorcycle industry that once was, then ask me why I haven’t got a job.
I own a Royal Enfield, if you don’t have a lot of engineeing knowledge and a lot of tools don’t bother.
The nasty evil Brexiters are driving the country to ruin. They ought to be put before the Courts for treason and fraud.
How many times re we going to get empty threats from rabid remainers, it’s bad enough they want the elitist vote, we had the people’s vote 2 years ago without continuing to say things they were saying in 2015.
What threats? This is a businessman basically telling us what he’s going to do!