Car maker BMW threatens a Brexit pullout in case of no deal days after Airbus
The German car maker has become the latest big business to issue a similar warning over a UK customs union exit
BMW became the latest big business last night to threaten a Brexit pullout as a fresh Cabinet row exploded over the dire warnings.
Long delays at ports if no friction-free customs agreement is struck with Brussels would mean its plants in the UK will have to close, the luxury German car maker claimed.
The starkest warning yet from a major manufacturer came as demands for a softer Brexit step up ahead of a key Cabinet showdown to agree the UK’s final Brexit demands next week.
Public cracks also appeared among Theresa May’s top table again, as senior ministers clashed with each other on whether firms are right to speak out.
Business Secretary Greg Clark blasted two Cabinet colleagues to insist they should “respect” the companies’ warnings.
On Sunday, Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt and International Trade Secretary Liam Fox attacked plane maker Airbus, branding its threat to leave the UK while negotiations enter their tensest moment as “completely inappropriate”.
But Mr Clark told MPs yesterday: “Any company and any industry that supports the livelihoods of so many working people in this country is entitled to be listened to with respect”.
The PM herself was forced to intervene between her feuding big beasts as tensions spiral before the Chequers summit to hammer out differences in nine days time.
No10 refused to endorse Mr Hunt’s attack on Airbus, saying only it’s “a matter for them” – a slap down for the health boss.
A full blown government civil war had threatened to erupt, with defence minister Guto Bebb accusing former entrepreneur Mr Hunt of only attacking Airbus because of his “multi-millionaire” Tory leadership ambitions.
The Sun says
BREXIT threats from foreign firms with UK workforces are at fever pitch.
First Airbus. Now a BMW boss says the German giant may have to shut the Mini plant at Oxford if its supply chain is disrupted.
Business Secretary Greg Clark (a Remainer) insists we must take them at their word. But the Cabinet must NOT base our nation’s long-term future on predictable scares from EU firms that loathe Brexit.
If BMW’s fears are genuine, it should not be lobbying Downing Street alone.
It should be shouting at Brussels and Berlin — neither of which seems remotely interested in anyone’s job or business.
BMW has four UK facilities — factories making Mini and Rolls-Royce cars, an engine plant at Hams Hall and a metal pressing facility in Swindon — that together employ more than 7,000 people.
Around 90 per cent of the parts used in them come from mainland Europe
Like many British car plants, BMW relies on the imported components on the factory floor arriving “just in time”.
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BMW’s customs manager Stephan Freismuth said: “We always said we can do our best and prepare everything, but if at the end of the day the supply chain will have a stop at the border, then we cannot produce our products in the UK”.
Downing Street was also forced to insist that Mrs May’s preferred solution to the Brexit Irish border impasse remains on the table, despite being dismissed by a senior member of her Cabinet as “bureaucratic, unwieldy and impractical”.
Leader of the Commons Andrea Leadsom had also branded the new customs partnership plan as just more “red tape” for businesses.
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