Brexit now = CETA +/-?

[The VFM Addict]

I trust you have read the Honda announcement here.    Its closing its Turkey production plant at the same time its closes its Swindon.   Is that down to Brexit too?    Make sure you read that statement in full right to the end, which reads – “Honda’s European HQ will continue to be located in the UK. It will be focused on serving the needs of our European customers.”   Finally, Swindon produces the Civic as you know as does Turkey.   Both plants don’t close until production of the Civic ceases worldwide in 2021.

I can’t help but feel both of you (Duke and Ed) were seeing what you wanted to see, an opportunity to blame Brexit; which in reality was simply not there.

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During the Covid-19 Epidemic I will be wearing a mask and goggles while posting so that if I become infected I won't spread it to you.

[Ed P]

If you listened to the Honda CEO’s interview I will agree he did not blame Brexit, HOWEVER what he did say is market size is what drove their specific investment decision.  In other words the UK on its own is going to be too small to bother with for many international investments. Again this points to Corbyn’s Trade Bloc as the most sensible way forward both for the UK and the EU.

I’ll certainly agree with the Honda CEO’s rationale. When I was in a position to help drive investment decisions for a multi-national, scale was everything for both potential market and plant size. Nothing else came close, or was seen as manageable.

[The VFM Addict]

I disagree.  A matured market of approaching 70 million and with significant average incomes cannot be ignored by anyone.   If your argument was valid then the EU would never have bothered setting up a FTA with Canada because Canada has a population and economy both around half the size of ours.   Indeed, if your argument that we are too small to be bothered with then no-one whatsoever would bother with with ‘half our size’ Canada.

PS – Good to learn that you heard Ian Howells our R4 today as he settled conclusively the argument of whether Honda was a Brexit issue.  It was not.   However, I’ll bet a pound to a penny Remainers in general will still cite it as having been.  Such is the nature of Project Fear.

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During the Covid-19 Epidemic I will be wearing a mask and goggles while posting so that if I become infected I won't spread it to you.

[The VFM Addict]

Isn’t it amazing how, as the likelihood of a No Deal Brexit has grown the last year, Employment has surged, Unemployment has plummeted and there has been a real rise in wages of 1.3% after inflation is taken in to account; and 60,000 fewer people are now on Zero Hours Contracts than were a year ago.  These are the figures published today by the ONS.

But I thought that businesses were gearing down, moving out of the UK and not recruiting for fear of a No Deal Brexit !!!    There’s an old saying that when theory doesn’t match reality it is without exception the theory that is wrong.   Such is Project Fear, a theory that is not matching the reality.  And I’m being very generous calling Project Fear a ‘theory’ rather than in the main an intentional deception.

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During the Covid-19 Epidemic I will be wearing a mask and goggles while posting so that if I become infected I won't spread it to you.

[Ed P]

If you had properly read the context of my remark, instead of trying to spin-it to support some flimsy Brexit argument, then you would have confined your remarks to MNC capital investment decisions. Marketing decisions are quite something else as marketing manpower and capital resources are negligible on the scale of such things.

[The Duke]

Of course it’s down to brexit. The Japanese FTD just made it a no brianer.

Told you the brextremist PR wheels would be going into spin mode.

It will effect more than than the 20k ed. The 20k will be directly defected, but given Honda is such a big employer in the area there will be alot of indirect fallout across the whole area as unemployment Thame in the domino effect, as everyone slows their spending.

Give it 18 months and there may be some good housing investment oppertunites. Long term mind. Buy up all the defaulted houses, for buttons, and then rent them back to dss renters.

[Ed P]

The multiplier (at least five times) typically comprehends things like support trades and industries in the immediate area. I do not know what national multiplier applies.

To be fair, Honda had to close the Civic line as there is a huge trend towards Hybrid/Plug cars and the Civic and most of the Honda line just does not cut it anymore. (ditto many other petrol and diesel driven brands). What is unusual is Honda’s lack of corresponding European  investment in plug/hybrids as European Hybrid take-up has been faster than the US.

Announcements on Nissan Leaf production in Sunderland is probably the most critical one to come as Nissan have staked a lot on Plug cars.

[The Duke]

I actually thought it was 7, but 5 is close enough. But the knock on effect to local economy given the size of the area and the high dependence on that industry, is going to be rough.

[Dave Rice]

90% (?) of the Civics were for export not UK consumption so comparisons with the size of the UK and Canadian market are somewhat spurious. Now the Japanese have a FTA with the EU the advantages of manufacturing in the EU are lessened. Take that manufacturing out of the EU so add costs and the advantages go down again. What’s being built there is no longer relevant so needs investment. The UK has broken promises made. It becomes an easy decision to pull the plug.

Would the plug have been pulled anyway? May be but there was no talk before and Brexit sure made the decision easier to take. How much more of this has got to happen before people realise that there is a common theme?

Unemployment may have gone down but I hear in works benefits are up. There will not be 15,000 jobs suddenly available in the Swindon area and that will be true in whatever regional areas get hit by decisions such as this. My area being one for Aerospace.

Growth is likely to continue but it won’t be across the UK it’ll still be the South East as usual not where the job losses will be. Where is the inwards investment going to be going? Cornwall? Northumberland? The Welsh hills?

[Ed P]

Actually Swindon is supposedly the sweet-spot manufacturing location as it has the best logistics links with the rest of the UK and export locations. So it could well be a test-case area.

[Wheels-Of-Fire]

We will just have to see. We can’t see until we are really out. If it dont work the EU really WILL welcome our cash back with open arms. If it dont work we will have had only had a couple of years floundering in utter EU free economic disaster. Ask the public if they like the way things are then. Suck it and see !

[The Duke]

They will welcome us back. Bet will pay the same if not more, and get far less control.

Idiotic comes to mind.

[The VFM Addict]

I note Duke that you in effect accusing Ian Howell. Head of Honda UK of telling falsehoods.  He was clear and unequivocal on Radio 4 that Brexit played no part in the equation.    Japan is doing what Japan often does when there is major market downturn.   They reconsolidate production at home if economically viable.   Given the EU FTA with Japan Honda would have returned home irrespective of Brexit.   That’s why Honda’s press release also stated that the Turkey production plant closes at the same time as Swindon.   That can’t be down to Brexit can it?

With the long term political objectives of the EU the total deal we had while in the EU could not have endured long anyway.   So what WoF said is not crazy.   By the time we went back in, were that to occur, then we’d be in no different a position as if we had stayed in.   I have said over and over that the only way to end the division in the UK is to leave and ‘suck it and see’.    Without such the in-out rift can never be settled conclusively can it (?) and so the Leave/Remain battle would just go on and on and on and on and on and on and on………………………………………….    I think years of that would do more damage to the UK than anything.   Can’t you see that?

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During the Covid-19 Epidemic I will be wearing a mask and goggles while posting so that if I become infected I won't spread it to you.

[The Duke]

Alluding not accusing. There is noting wrong or faulse in him saying are moving to Japan cos of the JFTD, all true. But the brexit mess, makes that such an easier decision.

[Ed P]

The VFM Addict wrote:

I think years of that would do more damage to the UK than anything. Can’t you see that?

No – anything is better than a Hard Brexit, or are you in the idiotic ‘Brexit means Brexit’ camp?

[Bob Williams]

The picture is absolutely clear to those who wish to interpret the current picture of business and financial movements planned and considered, away from the UK. After Brexit, Fear will be a reality, not a Project. Fear of gradually occurring job losses by the thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands. Fear of losing raw materials, food, housing and a half-decent way of life.

“Suck it and See” is going to cause the worst times in this country since the 1920’s and ’30’s.

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[The VFM Addict]

I cannot help but feel, Bob, that you prove my point.  You declare as fact what will happen when no such certainty exists.    This is the crux of the matter both Remainers and Leavers believe differently and such cannot be decided until we have a factual record upon which to reach a conclusion.

Let us consider what occurs if we don’t leave.  The war between the two sides goes on and probably even more intensely than ever before.   Businesses would have no certainty in reality.   I truly believe such, in that it would go on for years, would indeed be catastrophic for inward investment, which despite the illusion projected by Project Fear had not yet occurred.   Go take a look at our economy.    Employment up equaling the best on record, unemployment down, wages increasing in real terms, growth predictions from the BoE and the EU which have us outperforming Germany, etc.   Is this what Project Fear predicted would occur once we had voted (note I say voted) to leave?

Next look around at other PF myths.  For example in the event of a No Deal there would be no transition period.   Yet the EU has set up transition arrangements in the case of a No Deal in every major sector from Air Travel to Road Haulage through Finance.

The reality is that Business is very good at succeeding no matter what the rules are.  Its uncertainty that does the damage and if we go down a route where the matter is not resolved conclusively then the uncertainty will endure with the battle between Leavers and Remainers totally dominating politics for decades.    That uncertainty will surely thwart the inward investment that is not being damaged at present and will of its nature damage employment progressively.

The public recognises that this has to be settled now and conclusively or are you for effectively kicking the can down the road with increasingly brutal political skirmishes at every lamppost for a decade?     I do understand your fears.    I believe they are wrong but acknowledge that they are very real to you and to many here.     But look around and you will find that a huge number of the fears proffered by PF truly are entirely unfounded and have already been shown to be literally without any substance whatsoever.   I note even here folks are persisting with trying to link Honda to Brexit or say it made that decision easier.   What part of Ian Howell’s declaration that it played no part do they not understand.    I stress again the Turkey plant closes at the same time.   Did Brexit make that decision easier also?    It is this intransigent compulsion among Remainers to link everything to Brexit that is preposterous.   Perhaps I should follow a similar preposterous rule and say that our fantastic employment levels at present and better predicted growth than Germany is obviously down to the fact that we are Leaving.   The reality is that I don’t believe it is.  Rather it is merely clear that the fact we are leaving is not damaging employment or our economy.    The figures could never be more conclusive.   They cannot be ignored.

I note at time of writing that May has again elected for rifts in our country.   She has rejected the compromise reached jointly by Leave and Remain MPs – the Malthouse Plan.   I have no doubts that this rejection of a sensible way forward will have pushed at least one or two Remain MPs into concluding that it truly now must be No Deal.

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During the Covid-19 Epidemic I will be wearing a mask and goggles while posting so that if I become infected I won't spread it to you.

[Ed P]

We have not actually left so I agree that anything that is happening in the run-up to Brexit is inconsequential. I would however take exception to your glowing  portrayal of our economic performance as that certainly is not the whole story: ONS February Report

In  an age of extreme uncertainty, UK Businesses will postpone any decisions they do not have to make today, however if they do have to make a decision today then the US forecast of £1.1 to the US$ in a Hard Brexit case make it essential that May gets off the pot and does something. We are currently being damaged more by uncertainty and ignorance than reality.

 

[The VFM Addict]

Glad you provided the link although I thought I linked the report previously.   Now what in particular were you citing on the page you linked, Ed?      May I highlight the section on ‘FDI – liabilities (overseas investment into the UK)’  and the text that accompanies it that is clear that investors have confidence in future UK economic growth.   Indeed, I would suggest that readers review all of the ‘Trends to Consider’ sections on that page and decide on the total picture.

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During the Covid-19 Epidemic I will be wearing a mask and goggles while posting so that if I become infected I won't spread it to you.

[keith with the teef]

Yay. Renter gob , muscle mouth: Anna Soubry has left the conservative party. That women is a nob.

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