Nissan was always going to build its battery “giga-factory” in Sunderland, especially as the government paid them a rumoured £100m bribe to do so. This provided a powerful incentive for Nissan to align the building of an all-new electric vehicle in the UK with the creation of a new battery factory alongside it. And for Johnson’s Tories, any other decision would have been unthinkable – hence their willingness to throw money at the company.
And this bribe isn’t the first: in February 2019 the then-business secretary Greg Clark was forced to admit the existence of a secret package of state aid to Nissan worth up to £80m had the carmaker gone ahead with plans to manufacture a new model X-Trail in Sunderland after Brexit. Clark released a letter dated October 2016 in which he pledged tens of millions of taxpayer support and promised the Japanese company it would not be “adversely affected” after the UK left the EU. In the event, Nissan axed plans to build that model in Sunderland, but from then on knew Johnson’s government could be relied on for a bung.
In any case, the Sunderland plant is one of the company’s most efficient and the the 2019 Christmas Eve trade deal meant all UK cars and parts could continue to be sold tariff and quota free in the EU as long as the majority of components are sourced domestically or from within Europe. At the moment — because it is a new technology — there is an exemption for imported batteries.
However, from 2024, 50 per cent of the materials used to make batteries will also have to be sourced domestically or in Europe. So it would have been very strange if Nissan hadn’t chosen Sunderland – but Johnson & Co couldn’t be 100% sure of this and any other decision would have been a political disaster for them.
But for all the overblown rhetoric and posturing of Johnson and his business secretary, Kwasi Kwarteng (not to mention the Brexiteer tabloids), this is no vindication of Brexit. It’s simply proof that the Johnson regime will pay virtually anything to keep Nissan in Sunderland in the wake of Brexit. If the UK had stayed in the EU, no bribes would have been considered necessary.
Meanwhile, Ford has closed its Bridgend engine facility, Honda is closing its Swindon site, and the Society of Motor Manufacturers has warned that up to 90,000 jobs could be at risk unless the government increases support for electric car production to German and US levels.
Shiraz Socialist (Second Run) 
I too found it a bit weird, the announcement about the battery plant. I later read and realised that Nissan are
not just building a new plant here due to the natural advantages of the North East of the UK but are benefiting from this subsidy/bribe, or whatever you want to call it, so it’s not at all the straightforward deal that it might seem. Perhaps another aspect of the deal is that all the other small vehicle manufacturers will be allowed to fail, close or move to the the EU leaving Nissan in an enviable monopolistic position!
So, after spending (printing is a better description) gigabucks of public money fighting Covid and preventing massive disruption by running near empty trains and buses, etc, even more is being given to a few favoured companies in subsidies for what should be profitable export businesses. Just so that when questioned about industrial decline Johnson and team can always point to this one example of a business success story ‘freely choosing to invest and expand in the UK’.
Nissan are likely to be thinking long term and realise that the present Brexit situation is unsustainable. Either a more accommodating arrangement with the EU will evolve over time or if the hard Brexiters persist the economic turmoil, think inflation, unemployment, falling incomes, failing pubic services, etc, will result in a change of regime after revolution or just an ordinary election defeat and business as usual will be resumed for Nissan. Then there’s the value of the pound. With all the turmoil the pound will collapse making manufacturing here much cheaper in Yen and Euro terms, a win-win for Nissan, if not for the workers in Sunderland, being paid in a depreciated currency.
Then again, Johnson could take a leaf out of Putin’s and She Gin Ping’s book. Persuade the Queen to issue a royal proclamation making him PM for life. After all the Queen is Queen for life so it seems a bit unfair Johnson isn’t for life too. If that happens all bets are off!
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The important thing is jobs for people and not blinkered lefty theory. Jim Denham will remember Lee Jeans in Greenock which was a profitable company but decided to move to the Republic of Ireland because they got a better tax deal and subsidy. The capitalist EU/EEC did nothing to prevent this.
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