The car industry's future health is in jeopardy until tariff-free access to the European Union is secured, Peter Johnson, chairman of the Retail Motor Industry Federation (RMI), has warned.
Highlighting the implications of no agreement being reached following Brexit, Johnson said: “The UK’s automotive sector is a global leader and the future state and success of the industry could be jeopardised if a trade deal is not secured to allow tariff-free access to the European single market, following our vote to leave the EU.
“It is now essential that the Government makes a commitment to outline a clear negotiating position in order to ensure our industry has what it needs to secure its future success."
The RMI represents businesses that provide motor industry services and support to motorists across the UK. Its mission is to lobby for “higher standards of operation for the benefit of both consumers and the sector as a whole".
Johnson added: “It is vital that the Government encourages both economic and consumer confidence and enables investment in order for the retail motor industry to progress and thrive in a stable environment."
His words echo those of Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders chairman Mike Hawes, who has repeatedly called on the Government to establish stable terms during a transition period while Brexit plans are negotiated.
UK car sales fell in September for the first time in six years, with industry leaders blaming business and political uncertainty, as well as confusion over future air quality plans.
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max1e6
"If Nissan, Honda or Toyota want to leave the UK then I will help them pack their stuff on to the lorries.Where are they going to go?"
As Nissan export 82% of their cars to the EU, I would have thought that the answer is obvious???
Also, now that Jaguar have finished their contract with the Ford engine plant in Bridgend, why on earth will Ford be importing engine parts from the EU to Wales to build the engines to export them to the EU.
Perhaps the best answer to the problem of getting cheaper cars here is to do what the Australians did. Sign a great free trade deal with Thailand and get the cars built there with rates of £4 an hour for car workers. Then we can all have cheaper cars (and watch pigs fly past us in traffic jams).
NavalReserve wrote:
I know this will have great appeal to some people in that the workers doing dreary jobs on an assembly line will be able to get out in the fresh air and pick fruit etc. filling in for the 60% of our food that we currently get from the EU.
However , I fear that it may not get off the ground due to those pesky environmentailsts. ...
To import the cars from Thailand rather than the EU would need another 15 of the largest ships in the world which reliable sources say give out as much pollution as the total emitted by every car in the world. Have to think again. ;-(
Bazzer
wouldn't it be easier to promote migration?
russ13b
Yes, maybe - sort of £25,000 inducement if you leave the country? But it would be a drop in comparison to the daily influx. Government admitted this week that the number of illegal immigrants could be a million. It was supposed to be 430,000 in 2001, so the true figure is way over a million! This is not just back-of-lorry people, but students who apply for an educational visa, then simply stay. The government have announced that NONE of them will be deported. It will carry on like this until people start to realise what is going on. We are sleep-walking into a population disaster.
When are people going to understand?
None of this matters - economics! The ONLY thing that matters is our population rate - somewhere between 1,780 and 2,000 a day. We could be the richest country in the world, but what good is that if you can't get a GP's appointment for a month, or your child in a local school, or the wait at A&E is 10 hours? We can't kill off the old, we can't do anything about the birth rate, the ONLY way we can affect our massive population growth is through immigration control. We are more densely packed than Pakistan or China. We have Europe's fastest-growing population rate. If we fail to stop immigration, our population will increase by 7 million in just 10 years! Already, our infrastructure is at breaking point - from electricity generation, to sewerage, to water treatment. We can't house those already here, let alone those expected to come. Immigration is responsible for 90% of the EU's population growth! Please try and understand that if we stayed in the EU we'd be able to do NOTHING about immigration (as France & Germany will discover in the next 5 years). So all talk of trade doesn't actually matter. It doesn't matter if car firms struggle after we leave. It doesn't matter if the pound falls even further. ALL that matters is that we get out. Only then can we start to tackle our population growth through halting immigration. Admittedly though, even our politicans can't grasp the seriousness of it yet.