Nissan warned government on fate of Sunderland without deal

[Denzil_DC]

Nissan warned the British government that the carmaker would wind down UK operations if it was not guaranteed competitive trading conditions with Europe, according to two people involved in negotiations over future investment in its Sunderland plant.

During talks that led to a meeting between Theresa May and Nissan chief Carlos Ghosn, the Japanese carmaker said it was prepared to shift production to its Spanish and French factories in a move that would lead to the closure of its British plant and other UK sites.

Government assurances offered to Nissan led to its decision this week to locate two new cars at the plant from 2019, safeguarding more than 30,000 jobs at the site and in its supply chain.

...

Rival carmakers are now demanding the same assurances offered to Nissan to shield them from the impact of Brexit. While technology and pharmaceuticals companies are prioritising visas for skilled workers, other exporters including chemicals manufacturers have set tariff-free access to the EU as a priority.

https://www.ft.com/content/21346414-9d25-11e6-a6e4-8b8e77dd083a

And so it begins.

The government (whatever arm of it we're talking about here, as communication and co-ordination between the various departments so far has seemed particularly ineffective - No. 10 currently denies that May and Ghosn discussed the potential closure at their meeting, which beggars belief) has apparently made some pretty rash, desperate promises to Nissan: "the carmaker would face no change in its trading conditions following Britain’s exit from the EU".

Either this is bullshit, or May's willing, despite all the bluster, to eventually settle for any deal with the EU that will fulfil these conditions (a far softer Brexit than has been hinted at so far), or she's willing to throw however much money and other inducements at them as ends up being necessary to keep them sweet and on British soil (which would require some nifty accounting to avoid falling foul of WTO and other trading bloc rules).

The FT article speculates that Nissan deciding to leave the UK "would have ... set a precedent for other carmakers to locate future work outside Britain", and other major employers might have followed in their wake. Now instead, May's set another precedent, and every significant industry that could relocate will be after its own preferential treatment.

Maybe we should all join the queue with our caps in hand. If enough if us can get these assurances, it'll be as if we never left ...

[LeftishBrit]

1. We may be faced with either having companies desert us, causing massive unemployment...

or having to spend an awful lot of money on keeping at least some companies in Britain, and on legal advice to keep it just on the safe side of bribery laws. A future bus may say, 'We are spending 350 million a week to keep some companies operating in Britain - why not spend it on the NHS?'

[Denzil_DC]

2. Indeed.

There have been suggestions that these sort of bribes/sweetheart deals were detailed on the other side of the "£350 million a week for the NHS" bus!

The money/implied blackmail is one thing (we've long offered inducements to firms to set up in the UK - in the past, quite a few of them have pocketed the cash and walked away with it after a couple of years), but it's more interesting to me what it might imply about May's real expectations of what Brexit will end up meaning. To satisfy all these interest groups, she'd have to come up with a Brexit as soft as a puppy wrapped up in a roll of Andrex - Brandrexit?!

That's assuming she's doing any joined-up thinking about it all, of course, rather than flailing at developments ...