Honda to close UK car plant in 2022, risking 3,500 jobs

stator

Herzlos wrote: »

Japan has arranged tariff free trade with the EU (pushed by the UK), and the UK is looking like introducing 10% tariffs to the EU. It doesn't take a brain surgeon to work out the consequences.


Would Honda have left the UK if it was still going to have 0% tariffs to the UK? It's not as likely since it's a lot of expense for minimal gain. They may have chosen to keep Swindon running and opened a new plant in Japan when it was needed.

Don't be silly.

If brexit had anything to do with the decision they would wait 2 months and see if there is a brexit deal.
If there's a deal, there are no tarrifs between UK and EU.


They are closing this factory in a few years, 2 months to see if there is a deal is not long to wait.


Step outside of your bubble and admit this factory closure has nothing to do with brexit.

spikyone

Herzlos wrote: »

Would Honda have left the UK if it was still going to have 0% tariffs to the UK? It's not as likely since it's a lot of expense for minimal gain. They may have chosen to keep Swindon running and opened a new plant in Japan when it was needed.

Yes, they would have left. Honda leaving is not a consequence of Brexit:

- Honda Turkey is also closing
- Honda do not sell enough cars in the EU to justify having one factory in the EU, never mind two (Honda Turkey is EU, to all intents and purposes)
- 90% of Swindon-made products were being exported outside the EU - lots of them to the US, whose government may be about to introduce large tariffs on EU-manufactured cars
- Honda have been moving production of other models to Japan and the US, from Swindon, since before the referendum was even announced

There is no real expense (aside from redundancy payouts), because this will coincide with a new model introduction, just as the transfer of the Jazz and CR-V did previously. The timing of the announcement coincides with the point at which Honda had to decide whether to produce the next-generation Civic in a high-cost, low-consumer market (both true with or without Brexit) or to move production closer to much larger markets. Honda Civic sales in Europe last year: 45,000. Honda sales in the US last year: 325,000. It's very clear which is the more sensible place to build a new model.

The writing has been on the wall for the Swindon factory for a long time.

Herzlos

I can also dredge up citations of at least 3 prominent leavers stating that it doesn't mean leaving the single market.



What Brexit means seems to change every time Project Fear turns into Project Reality. At first it was just the same as being in the EU but without sending them money or allowing free movement. Then it was a close trade deal, now it seems you've wanted a scorched earth Brexit all along.


If there was any consensus on a workable Brexit we'd have left by now.


Currently the cabinet are now fighting over whether there will be tariffs on WTO or not. Some thing we should ditch them and kill off our farming, some thing we should keep them and protect our farming but push food prices up.

andrewf75

stator wrote: »

If there's a deal, there are no tarrifs between UK and EU.

Not true at all - it depends what the deal is - and the currently being negotiated deal is for the terms of exit, not the future relationship. That won't be decided on for years.

I'm not suggesting Brexit is to blame, its clearly not the main one, but its likely to be a factor. There will be uncertainty surrounding our trade relations with the rest of the world for many years to come not just until the exit deal is completed.

The Japanese like stability and hate risk. They are very much against Brexit. It may not be the specific reason, but it could be the straw that breaks the camels back in the case of these car plants.

Herzlos

stator wrote: »

Don't be silly.

Are you sure?
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5951342/brexit-the-economy-and-house-prices-part-7-brexit-harder&page=38#746 shows that Honda have been warning about Brexit since 2017. It's really not a surprise.


I think the timing is a last ditch attempt to get Parliament to see sense - they can always change their mind and stay, but the Japanese are very risk averse so might just see the UK as too toxic to rely on now given it's taken us nearly 3 years to achieve pretty much nothing.

movilogo

I'm not suggesting Brexit is to blame, its clearly not the main one, but its likely to be a factor.

Coincidence and corelation are not same.

spadoosh

Herzlos wrote: »

Japan has arranged tariff free trade with the EU (pushed by the UK), and the UK is looking like introducing 10% tariffs to the EU. It doesn't take a brain surgeon to work out the consequences.


Would Honda have left the UK if it was still going to have 0% tariffs to the UK? It's not as likely since it's a lot of expense for minimal gain. They may have chosen to keep Swindon running and opened a new plant in Japan when it was needed.


Honda has been making loud noises about how leaving the customs union kills their business model dead (because they get literally millions of parts under JIT which isn't possible with customs delays), and now that we're leaving they've had to follow through.

It's actually a good thing for Brexiteers - if we've lost Honda anyway, then there's no point in cancelling Brexit to keep them.




We'd be in exactly the same mess if it was 100% leave - the problem is that no-one knows what leave means. All it'd mean is that there'd be no talk of withdrawing A50.


Lots of people predicted this mess, but people were "sick of experts". I felt bad about the mess for a while but I now reckon the only way to solve it is to let is go wrong, learn some lessons and then move on to fix it and recover what we can.


Agreed. It was always an impossible argument for Remain, because too many people want to believe they can get a unicorn.

Do you think a shake up of British politics is needed?

Would that be the case if there wasnt a referendum?


Yes we do need to fall on our sword. We need to own it. We cannot take pride in our successes whilst the EU takes credit. We can not hold our politicians to account whilst they are pointing fingers at the EU. The whole concept of the EU is to remove personal responsibility using your mentioned experts. Youre too stupid to decide what fuel to use in your car, you need to be told. Youre too stupid to decide what you think is safe to eat so you need to be told. Youre too stupid to negotiate a mutually agreeable trade with someone so we need to do it for you. This has removed personal responsibility from people. They cant blaim themselves for their failings because they are failings imposed on them by someone else. They can celebrate their successes because the successes are attributable to someone else.

The biggest problem with the experts is that they claim to be experts on life. Yet to this day ive yet to come across a definitive guide to life. So they come out with stuff like you need to buy diesels to save the planet. But ermhhh yeh thats not good now. And we need to make stuff cheaper and cheaper because it makes everyone happy, well apart from those losing their jobs, the tax man receiving lower revenue and thus those using the services which theyve been promised and become political suicide to remove.

I dont wish to undermine experts, because theyre expert. The issue is theres a difference between expert in say medcine versus an expert in public health. To display this a doctor in america and a doctor in the uk will largely agree on facts about the body, where they might disagree are treatments which will bei impacted by public health decisions. The expert public health person in the US thinks banning kinder eggs is a great idea. The experts in public health in the UK think medicinal cannabis is largely over rated. This is where the expert claims are dubious, they are effectively announcing themselves as expert in life choices. They sure as hell wont be taking any of the accountability for that though will they?

Herzlos

A shakeup of British politics is needed, but is Brexit going to be the catalyst? What's actually going to change?


I mean, if we're lucky, the Tory party will disintegrate and we might get some more options, but the same corrupt elite are still going to be there, the press is still run by the same people, the corporations are still run by the same people, there will be less rights for those without money/power.


We certainly need to own our failures, and I agree that learning from this is the only way to kill off populism and the rise of the right - it rarely survives any success.

movilogo

We certainly need to own our failures, and I agree that learning from this is the only way to kill off populism and the rise of the right - it rarely survives any success.

Why do we need to kill populism and rise of right?

Let's kill off rise of left and elitism instead

Herzlos

movilogo wrote: »

Why do we need to kill populism and rise of right?

Because populism got us into this mess. We've destroyed our economy to try and solve a problem that doesn't actually exist, because people have been told that those foreigners are the problem and Brexit will solve everything with no actual depth beyond populist soundbites.