Two weeks ago, the heading of my letter was, “Is Britain the worse governed nation in EU?” It seems the answer is resounding YES. One of the largest plants churning out 130,000 motor vehicles every year in UK is Honda, in Swindon; all vehicles are exported to Europe. Honda is the latest but not the only or the last one to abandon Britain, others taking similar actions or curtailing investments are Nissan, Panasonic, Hitachi and many more. But this announcement was certainly a bolt from the blue, totally unexpected.
Honda directly employs 3500 people in its vast industrial complex and supports another 7000 jobs directly or indirectly, supplying various parts, such as wheels, seats, windscreens, batteries, wipers, breaks, exhausts and many more. The closure will be shattering blow to manufacturing industry in UK, as so many Japanese companies have taken similar frenzy actions, either to stop investing in UK plants or close down their factories and concentrate production in Japan. Brexit is accelerating Japanese exodus.
Both EU and Japan are playing dirty games, has caught Britain napping. While our PM is concentrating solely on Brexit, EU and Japan signed new trade deal which means Japan can export motor vehicles direct from Japan to EU tariff free, thus making it unnecessary to have European outpost. EU is playing every dirty game in the book to make UK suffer if it leaves EU without agreement and our government is falling hook, line and sinker, sleep walking into disaster.
These Japanese firms were persuaded in 1980s by then PM Margaret Thatcher, a shrewd, clever and efficient negotiator, to move to Britain, accommodating and facilitating their requests, with ease and common sense.
When Nissan recently negated their promise to build their next generation of cars here with government financial help, I thought it must be a considerable amount Nissan could not afford to lose. But it turned out to be a paltry £61 million, not even 1% of our huge “Overseas Aid” budget. Now PM has contacted elusive Honda Chairman. It is too little, too late, to bolt the door after the horse has escaped! It is time for politicians to wake up, be street wise to stop eolithic Britain from becoming an industrial wasteland with vast unemployment and civil strife!
Bhupendra M. Gandhi
By email
