Consequences Of Brexit [Part 9] Read First Post Before Posting

[tinfoilhat 11]

4 minutes ago, Car Boot said:

We no longer manufacture British cars anymore Anna because of global political and economic trading blocs we signed up to, such as the EU, bringing in rules that forbid state aid of industry. Distorts the markets.

 

But moving labour from poorer parts of the EU to richer parts to keep down labour costs does NOT distort markets - according to the Mickey mouse European kangaroo Court of Justice.

 

You couldn't make it up. The entire idea behind the EU is to distort markets in favour of business.

Please ignore that nonsense Anna. Poor management is the simple answer off the back decades of poor management and industrial strife. We are also very keen in this country on selling businesses for foreign money.

1 minute ago, Pettytom said:

So, why can the German’s make cars, but we cannot?

And the French. Spanish, Czech, Rumanian. Oh and the Swedish.

[altus 540]

14 minutes ago, West 77 said:

Nissan dismisses reports it is set to close its Sunderland plant

https://www.sunderlandecho.com/business/nissan-dismisses-reports-it-set-close-its-sunderland-plant-3045230

In any case since the EU referendum vote the global  motor industry has changed significantly with the fast change to electric vehicles. Also Japan and the EU have a new trade agreement meaning the factory in Sunderland is no longer has vital for Nissan to export vehicles to mainland EU countries.

It's worth noting that the only thing Nissan have denied is that a decision to close the plant has already been made. From that article:

Quote

The firm has previously warned that the future of its Sunderland factory could be in doubt in the event of a no-deal Brexit.

Global chief operating officer Ashwani Gupta told the BBC earlier this year that the EU was the biggest customer for vehicles built at Sunderland, with around 70 per cent of cars from there going to the EU.

And he said that a 10 per cent tariff - which would be the default World Trade Organisation rate in the event of no-deal - would mean such an arrangement was not viable.

Since the government are still negotiating with the EU, and there may be a last minute deal which would avoid the 10% tariffs, there's still a possibility that the plant will remain viable. It would be premature to make a decision to close a factory if the thing that might make it unviable hasn't happened yet and still might not happen.

 

In related news: No-deal Brexit would cost UK car industry £55bn, says analysis

Quote

The UK automotive sector risks losing £55bn in manufacturing value within five years in the event of a no-deal Brexit, according to new industry analysis.

British car production could drop below 1m cars a year if there is no deal, compared with more than 1.3m in 2019, because tariffs would make large parts of the UK business unviable, said forecasts commissioned by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, the industry lobby group.

...

Industry executives have warned that a no-deal Brexit would jeopardise the future of UK plants. PSA Group has said it will only build its new Vauxhall Astra in the UK if there is a trade deal, while Nissan has said the business model of its Sunderland plant – the largest car factory in the UK – would be destroyed.

Nissan’s chief operating officer, Ashwani Gupta, last week reiterated that “obviously our UK business will not be sustainable” if there were no deal, in an interview with Reuters. However, the Japanese carmaker on Monday denied a report in German media that a decision to close the plant had already been made.

All of the UK’s large car manufacturers have foreign owners. The presence of Japanese and other European carmakers in the UK was based in large part on easy access to Europe’s single market, meaning that the industry sees any barriers to trade as damaging. The SMMT study, carried out by consultancy Auto Analysis, found that even a “bare bones” trade deal would cost the industry £14.1bn.

 

[Anna B 1,414]

9 minutes ago, tinfoilhat said:

Please ignore that nonsense Anna. Poor management is the simple answer off the back decades of poor management and industrial strife. We are also very keen in this country on selling businesses for foreign money.

And the French. Spanish, Czech, Rumanian. Oh and the Swedish.

Sorry, but I don't buy that. Yes, there was industrial strife every time workers demanded a better deal to keep up with the cost of living, but I suspect the reporting of it was as biased as we've seen recently against Socialist Labour. Anything which tries to improve the lot of the working class seems to come with inbuilt loathing. Thatcher was looking for reasons to smash the Unions for her own purposes, instead of trying ro work with them, so she could bring about the demise of manufacturing that we saw throughout the 80s and 90s. Consequently we now have very little manufacturing left and are whipped by the likes of Germany.

 

And boy do we need those Unions now.... 0 hours, short term contracts, job insecurity...

 

Where was the reporting when the banks deregulated and the fat cats were getting fatter and fatter with enormous salaries; when the top end of pay scale took off like a rocket, leaving the  workers behind? We didn't hear much negative reporting about that did we? Yuppies were celebrated as a huge success and the new normal (!) When a few people tried to make people aware of what was happening and the growing power of the Corporations, like Occupy, they were roundly ridiculed. When the banks crashed as a result of the banks/Yuppies greed, the Tories even tried to blame that on Labour! 

 

We now have a massive pay gap between the bosses and the rest, yet it is the workers who are the actual means of production, and we can't even make our own cars, just make them for a foreign company...

[Pettytom 1]

8 minutes ago, Anna B said:

Sorry, but I don't buy that. Yes, there was industrial strife every time workers demanded a better deal to keep up with the cost of living, but I suspect the reporting of it was as biased as we've seen recently against Socialist Labour. Anything which tries to improve the lot of the working class seems to come with inbuilt loathing. Thatcher was looking for reasons to smash the Unions for her own purposes, instead of trying ro work with them, so she could bring about the demise of manufacturing that we saw throughout the 80s and 90s. Consequently we now have very little manufacturing left and are whipped by the likes of Germany.

 

 

So why can Germany make excellent cars, but we cannot?

 

It has been thirty years since Margaret Thatcher. Plenty of time to establish a manufacturing base of our own. 
 

The truth is that we used to make rubbish cars that nobody wanted. Nowadays, we rely on the Japanese.

Edited November 24, 2020 by Pettytom

[Anna B 1,414]

1 hour ago, Pettytom said:

So why can Germany make excellent cars, but we cannot?

 

It has been thirty years since Margaret Thatcher. Plenty of time to establish a manufacturing base of our own. 
 

The truth is that we used to make rubbish cars that nobody wanted. Nowadays, we rely on the Japanese.

If we made rubbish cars, why? is the question you should be asking.

Same (more so) wth Germany.  If the designs are wrong, change the designs. We used to be inventors and innovators. Now it seems we just give good ideas away because inventors can't get backing. 

[Pettytom 1]

18 minutes ago, Anna B said:

If we made rubbish cars, why? is the question you should be asking.

Same (more so) wth Germany.  If the designs are wrong, change the designs. We used to be inventors and innovators. Now it seems we just give good ideas away because inventors can't get backing. 

The question I’m asking is why can’t we make cars, but Germany can?

 

The answers I’ve got so far are that the EU stops us, or that it’s Thatcher’s fault.

 

I’m not convinced.

[Bargepole23 337]

3 hours ago, Anna B said:

If we made rubbish cars, why? is the question you should be asking.

Same (more so) wth Germany.  If the designs are wrong, change the designs. We used to be inventors and innovators. Now it seems we just give good ideas away because inventors can't get backing. 

No more than many many other countries, countries who chose to see value and keep investing in engineering, to keep renewing their factories and processes.

[Car Boot 10]

17 hours ago, tinfoilhat said:

Please ignore that nonsense Anna. Poor management is the simple answer off the back decades of poor management and industrial strife. We are also very keen in this country on selling businesses for foreign money.

And the French. Spanish, Czech, Rumanian. Oh and the Swedish.

Ah.

 

The old, discredited, 'UK is a failure that's why we are dependent upon the EU' mantra that backfired in the June 2016 referendum. 

[Arnold_Lane 0]

15 minutes ago, Car Boot said:

Ah.

 

The old, discredited, 'UK is a failure that's why we are dependent upon the EU' mantra that backfired in the June 2016 referendum. 

It’s much more accurate than your interpretation.

[L00b 441]

1 hour ago, Arnold_Lane said:

It’s much more accurate than your interpretation.

The UK (edit: industry) was 'a failure' when it joined the EU in 1973.

 

But for the political failure of the past few years, it hasn't been 'a failure' at any time since.  

 

There is  still the barest of times left, for the UK to avoid becoming 'a failure' again over the next few years (and to avoid becoming "not the UK anymore"), out of Brexit, Covid and exploitation by neocapitalists far and wide...if only it will manage to pause its political falling, like the US just did.

 

Meanwhile, French customs ran a real-life test of their Brexit-ready system with Eurotunnel freight traffic yesterday.

 

Perhaps predictably (alright, completely predictably ) the result was a five-mile lorry queue in Kent.

Edited November 25, 2020 by L00b

[alchresearch 214]

Yes Minister's "Eurosausage" episode anyone?
 

Popular EU sausages set to disappear from British supermarkets, in new trade blow

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-trade-bratwurst-irish-sausages-uk-b1761563.html

[Pettytom 1]

2 hours ago, West 77 said:

We made good cars until British Leyland was formed. British Leyland didn't benefit from nationalisation. The work force at the time in the 70's didn't have much pride and were lazy. The workers on the night shift took tents and sleeping bags to work with them. Margaret Thatcher was responsible for helping to get the Japanese to invest in the UK which was helped by our  membership of the EEC or EU. Jaguar Land Rover make excellent cars today but they chose to invest and build  their new factory in Slovakia to take advantage of cheap labour. German manufacturers have also taking advantage of cheap Slovakian labour. In the past the UK motoring industry  did benefit from being in the EU but that was no longer the case after more countries joined the EU that included nations where the labour rates are so much lower than the UK.  

So. Why do we no longer make our own cars?