The BBC and the rest of the liberal media was creaming itself last week reporting as breaking news for several days on the trot claims by Nissan that it may cease investing in its Sunderland plant because of Brexit. That will teach those thick racists in the grim North for voting for Brexit smirked the southern liberal elite. The great unwashed have only themselves to blame. They should have listened to the London lefty millionaires from the media and academia who really knew what was best for the "ordinary people" of Britain. What the BBC and Guardian failed to report is that Nissan has form. It is the boy who cried Euro Wolf.
Roll back to 2002, when all those folks who warned us how the stockmarket, house prices and the economy would crash within weeks and that base rates would soar if we voted for Brexit on June 23, were blathering on about the Euro. Think Peter Mandelson, Paddy Pantsdown, the CBI and think Nissan.
I refer you to an article from 4 December 2002 from the Daily Telegraph:
Nissan, the Japanese carmaker, said yesterday that further investment in the UK depends on whether Britain joins the euro. Carlos Ghosn, chief executive, said the Sunderland plant, which produces the Micra and employs nearly 5,000 people, could suffer if Britain stays out of the single currency.
"The challenge is that Sunderland is producing cars with costs in pounds and most of the revenues in euros, and this is a situation we don't like." The Sunderland plant is the most efficient in Europe and a leading light of the British car industry.
Nissan had considered moving production of the Micra to a plant owned by French partners Renault, had the Government not stepped in with an aid package. Mr Ghosn, who is credited with having transformed the fortunes of Nissan, said that if Britain did not join the euro, the company could decide on "less assembly activity".
Oh... so what happened when Britain ignored the bien pensants and did not join the disaster that has been the Euro? Natch: Nissan expanded its production in Sunderland anyway. What old carlos said was a complete porky pie.
Of course producing cars in Europe where workers are keen on strikes, impossible to fire without enormous payoffs however bad trade gets or useless they are and where productivity lags that in Sunderland is still an option. But there are many reasons why Nissan won't actually take it up.
And as the BBC and its liberal pals fail to report, the trouble is that Nissan cried Euro wolf before and perhaps that is why no-one outside the media bubble of diehard Remainers believes it this time around.