National News The Brexit Thread 🇬🇧🇪🇺

QR said:
It's fantastic news for Oxford and will have brightened up many peoples day but....

Have we real sunk so low as a country that we have to pay a bribe of £75m to an EU manufacturer simply for them to keep, not move just keep, a factory here?

How the disingenuous BMW spokesperson managed not to mention the bribe and not smirk was impressive.

'Knocking down our door' 'we hold all the cards' bullshit!! 😡😡😡😡
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Tbf, subsidies like these are common and have been for a long time (long before Brexit) for industries considered strategically important. They can be in the form of direct grant, tax breaks, provision of specialist infrastructure etc.
 
Marked Ox said:
Tbf, subsidies like these are common and have been for a long time (long before Brexit) for industries considered strategically important. They can be in the form of direct grant, tax breaks, provision of specialist infrastructure etc.
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It was quite different pre Brexit as State Aid rules were in place to prevent market distortions and governments giving bungs to their mates.

Yes, subsidies will be offered at an EU level but if we are only going to attract multinational businesses by winning bidding wars against the EU, USA, China, India etc it's going get mighty expensive.
 
QR said:
It was quite different pre Brexit as State Aid rules were in place to prevent market distortions and governments giving bungs to their mates.

Yes, subsidies will be offered at an EU level but if we are only going to attract multinational businesses by winning bidding wars against the EU, USA, China, India etc it's going get mighty expensive.
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So would we have lost the Cowley plant, if were still in the EU ?
And,is some of the reason BMW have decided to stay,driven by the cooling off/divesting into China ?
 
QR said:
It was quite different pre Brexit as State Aid rules were in place to prevent market distortions and governments giving bungs to their mates.

Yes, subsidies will be offered at an EU level but if we are only going to attract multinational businesses by winning bidding wars against the EU, USA, China, India etc it's going get mighty expensive.
Click to expand...

It happened before, to significant levels of cost and there are ways and means other than direct grants as previously mentioned so it really isn't much different, if different at all.
 
QR said:
It was quite different pre Brexit as State Aid rules were in place to prevent market distortions and governments giving bungs to their mates.

Yes, subsidies will be offered at an EU level but if we are only going to attract multinational businesses by winning bidding wars against the EU, USA, China, India etc it's going get mighty expensive.
Click to expand...
Tbf would Labour have acted any differently?
 
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LowerSouth said:
So would we have lost the Cowley plant, if were still in the EU ?
And,is some of the reason BMW have decided to stay,driven by the cooling off/divesting into China ?
Click to expand...
If the Brexit vote had been 52:48 the other way the EU would have been under incredible pressure to give the financial support. Or maybe being within the EU would have been sufficiently attractive. They may even have saved Wilko and the 12,000 jobs there.
 
QR said:
If the Brexit vote had been 52:48 the other way the EU would have been under incredible pressure to give the financial support. Or maybe being within the EU would have been sufficiently attractive. They may even have saved Wilko and the 12,000 jobs there.
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Who would have saved Wilko ?
 
Unfortunately Wilko was a bit of a failing business. It had been lent £40m by the (confusingly named) Hilco - who have also been involved with Habitat, HMV and Homebase. I am sure we can all see the common factor and no, it isn't the alliteration! The administrators of Wilko are PWC - to whom a paid advisor is... Hilco!! More about the whole process here: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/sep/04/hilco-wilko-high-street-retailers

It pretty much stinks of course, with the ones suffering the most likely to be the (ex)employees and the smaller creditors/suppliers. Hilco will make their money, PWC likewise and Wilko paid its owners, led by the Wilkinson family, £2.25m in the year to the end of January last year and a further £750,000 in February (source: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jan/04/wilko-funding-hilco-cash-chair) so they won't starve either.

That's not to say that Wilko isn't actually a victim of the whole High Street decline. It certainly is. In Bedford (one of my closest towns) the actual shops on the high street itself (discounting charity shops, vape shops, restaurants and drinking establishments) were Wilko, Rymans and a couple of convenience stores. It used to be a pretty vibrant place to shop some years ago when we lived in the town. But it has lost Debenhams, M&S, Beales department store, Woolies and BHS along with numerous small independents. I'm not convinced the alternative - ordering stuff online and having much of it delivered separately by innumerable white vans - is a goer in the long term either!
 
LowerSouth said:
Who would have saved Wilko ?
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It was tongue in cheek but it flags up what a can of worms a government giving financial support to one business but not another is. We've seen through the PPE scandal it doesn't take much for politicians to throw tasty contracts the way of their friends, acquaintances and donors and you can see how open to corruption giving state support can be.

Who to say BMW were never really contemplating moving but realise how easy it would be to play the government for £75m post brexit. And now BMW have succeeded how many will follow in their wake. As I said a massive can of worms.
 
Suck it up buttercups............... 🤷‍♂️

"The UK has overtaken France to become the world’s eighth-largest manufacturer, according to the manufacturers’ organisation, Make UK. Its analysis of the latest official data also reveals that manufacturing jobs in the UK pay better than both the services sector and the economy as a whole."
 
Essexyellows said:
Suck it up buttercups............... 🤷‍♂️

"The UK has overtaken France to become the world’s eighth-largest manufacturer, according to the manufacturers’ organisation, Make UK. Its analysis of the latest official data also reveals that manufacturing jobs in the UK pay better than both the services sector and the economy as a whole."
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And still not back to where it was in 2008 under the last Labour Government when we were part of the EU.

Better paid....because it;s the only way they can attract staff away from other sectors which make up the other 91.55% of our GDP . . .

Good lord, you'd think with all the practice you've had polishing turds over the last few years you'd be a bit better at it by now 🤷‍♂️
 
ZeroTheHero said:
Unfortunately Wilko was a bit of a failing business. It had been lent £40m by the (confusingly named) Hilco - who have also been involved with Habitat, HMV and Homebase. I am sure we can all see the common factor and no, it isn't the alliteration! The administrators of Wilko are PWC - to whom a paid advisor is... Hilco!! More about the whole process here: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/sep/04/hilco-wilko-high-street-retailers

It pretty much stinks of course, with the ones suffering the most likely to be the (ex)employees and the smaller creditors/suppliers. Hilco will make their money, PWC likewise and Wilko paid its owners, led by the Wilkinson family, £2.25m in the year to the end of January last year and a further £750,000 in February (source: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jan/04/wilko-funding-hilco-cash-chair) so they won't starve either.

That's not to say that Wilko isn't actually a victim of the whole High Street decline. It certainly is. In Bedford (one of my closest towns) the actual shops on the high street itself (discounting charity shops, vape shops, restaurants and drinking establishments) were Wilko, Rymans and a couple of convenience stores. It used to be a pretty vibrant place to shop some years ago when we lived in the town. But it has lost Debenhams, M&S, Beales department store, Woolies and BHS along with numerous small independents. I'm not convinced the alternative - ordering stuff online and having much of it delivered separately by innumerable white vans - is a goer in the long term either!
Click to expand...
The high street issue is the one of frustration and tax. If companies were forced to make tax payments based in the final transaction then the high street wouldn’t be cafes and charities….
Tax should be added and paid at the point of consumer purchase and not where a company chooses to do its tax returns. That one drives me bonkers!!
 
Sheik djibouti said:
Quite ironic that you're celebrating this @Essexyellows . . .

At least you've got one thing in common with the government....you've both had your pants pulled down and a foreign body shoved where the sun doesn't shine 🤣

We're certainly paying a premium to keep them here, not to mention we're years behind other countries in terms of manufacturing capacity and capability.
Like entering a 100m race, having nailed one of your feet to the floor🤷‍♂️
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How the f##k is this bad news?
 
PottersRightBoot said:
How the f##k is this bad news?
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Using your vanacular . . . where the f##k did I say it was bad news. Actually, I'll refer you to post 6000 in this very thread, where I said I was pleased

But let's not dress it up. We've just managed to save 4,000 local jobs, not engineered/negotiated a major industrial coup, as some might like you to think. We're still playing catch up.
 
Essexyellows said:
Suck it up buttercups............... 🤷‍♂️

"The UK has overtaken France to become the world’s eighth-largest manufacturer, according to the manufacturers’ organisation, Make UK. Its analysis of the latest official data also reveals that manufacturing jobs in the UK pay better than both the services sector and the economy as a whole."
Click to expand...
Any chance of a link…….
I follow a lot of posts from make Uk and I must have missed that one?
 
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