The fact they will pull all manufacturing out of the UK is because of brexit
Obviously it's nothing todo with it's supposed losses
There is very little we can do to stop them apart from cutting their costs in the uk I doubt they pay much anyway
I do a lot of work on vauxhalls and like them I just hope they don't get influenced by Peugeot too much as I hate working on French crap lol
On Brexit I do realise I have a different opinion to some others on this forum and I respect their views because they are born out of their own belief. I tend to base my argument on fact rather than conjecture and raw emotion and I do appreciate its a highly emotive subject with very entrenched attitudes.
Brexit is becoming and will continue to be a convenient excuse for all the major conglomerates to reassess their European operation; this happens all the time to help with manipulating funding from governments. I like Vauxhalls and so do a lot of people, its through hard work with the plant management and more importantly the co-operation and understanding of the unions that the two UK plants are the most efficient GM plants in Europe. The losses on the European GM operation are minor compared to the overall GM losses and contrary to other opinions on here they are very real and wholly attributable to the EU operation. GM stated in 2009 they wanted out of Europe and this was not helped by their disastrous dalliance with SAAB. The GM President Dan Ammann reiterated this at the beginning of 2016 before the Brexit vote.
The PSA group have a history of protectionism and will want to bolster the French manufacturing facilities above all else and it will be because of this they will look at plant closures and not Brexit. I was heavily involved with the PSA Group in the late 90's early 2000's and I have to say they are single minded in their protectionist approach. They were quite willing to close the UK manufacturing operation and sacrifice UK market share to protect their French manufacturing base. They closed Ryton and watched their UK sales plummet from a once high of 210,000 per annum to a current 98,000 full year 2016 sales. Their plant closure decision in 2007 had nothing to do with Brexit.
There are no facts to support the statement manufacturing will pull out of Britain because of Brexit. Its quite the contrary at the moment, because of the fall in the value of sterling, UK production facilities are ramping up their production because its more profitable to produce in Britain. This is not just short termism either because you will be aware looking into the future the most important negotiation we will have will be regarding the Customs Union more than the Brexit negotiations. You will also be aware their are a significant number of multinationals now registering offices in the UK to take advantage of more favourable terms regarding import duties with none EU countries.
Now is a very convenient time for all multinationals to inform the UK government they will be pulling out of the UK unless they receive some sort of sweetener. Nissan is typical, they have now said they want an additional £100 million to stay in Sunderland, Ford have asked for more to stay in Wales. If Nissan stay in Sunderland post Brexit they will benefit, they don't just have to sell to the EU. The restrictive EU Customs Union means the import duties imposed by the USA will be lower on UK manufactured cars than they will be on EU, Japanese or Chinese manufactured vehicles. Nissan have said it will be the same production costs whether they are producing cars for the EU of the USA. This is not just applicable to Nissan, it will also benefit, Honda, Toyota, BMW MINI, Bentley, Rolls Royce, Jaguar Land Rover, Aston Martin etc and of course the two current GM plants, unless the PSA Group want to put them to the sword to protect their French operations, (and they're bloody minded enough to do that).
With the UK pulling out of the highly restrictive EU Customs Union other multinationals are now registering companies in Britain. Interesting times ahead.
Edited by Northernpower, 05 March 2017 - 02:03 PM.