BMW set to halt Mini production in April

BMW WILL not build cars at its Mini plant immediately after the UK leaves the EU next year to minimise the risks of a no-deal Brexit.

The car giant said it was scheduling its annual maintenance to start on April 1 at the site in Cowley, near Oxford, and last several weeks, with the date chosen to coincide with Brexit.

A statement said: “As a responsible organisation, we have scheduled next year’s annual maintenance period at Mini Plant Oxford to start on April 1, when the UK exits the EU, to minimise the risk of any possible shortterm parts-supply disruption in the event of a no-deal Brexit.

“While we believe this worstcase scenario is an unlikely outcome, we have to plan for it.

“We remain committed to our operations in Britain.”

Meanwhile Honda warned a no-deal Brexit would cost the firm tens of millions of pounds but said it remained committed to its Swindon plant, which has about 3,500 staff building around 160,000 Honda Civics last year, more than 90 per cent of which were exported to Europe and the US.

“From an administrative point of view... we’d probably be looking at 60-odd thousand additional bits of documentation we would have to provide to get product to and from Europe,” he told BBC Radio 5 Live’s

“If we end up with WTO tariffs, we’d have something like 10 per cent of costs in addition of our shipped product back into Europe and that would certainly run into tens of millions.” SIR VINCE Cable has attempted to reach out to Brexit voters by saying wanting to manage immigration is not racist.

The Liberal Democrat leader said people had genuine fears that globalisation was turning secure jobs into “cr**” ones.

But his closing speech at the party’s conference risked being overshadowed after he fluffed the key line, in which he was expected to speak of Leave campaigners experiencing an “erotic spasm” over a hard Brexit.

Instead, the veteran MP grimaced as he stumbled over the phrase, saying “exotic sprezzum instead.

The mistake overshadowed the rest of his speech, in which Sir Vince demanded a fresh EU referendum because Brexiteers want to break with Brussels whatever the cost to the economy.

The former Business Secretary also hit out at Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn for hiring “hard-left boot boys” to do his dirty work “intimidating” colleagues.

But he tried to address Leave voters’ anxieties, telling delegates: “I don’t accept the idea that it is some form of racism to want immigration to be managed like other parts of the economy.

“To dismiss all Brexit voters as racists is simply wrong and utterly counter-productive.”

Sir Vince said parts of the country felt “left behind” and the Lib Dems had to combat the false perception that overall immigration had damaged wages.

“Deindustrialisation, globalisation ... all these ‘tions’ that were supposed to represent progress have often meant a move from skilled and respected jobs to cr** jobs – from certainty to insecurity.”

Insisting that Brexit was not inevitable, Sir Vince attacked Tory hardliners while insisting Theresa May does not believe in the project, saying: “To the ‘true believers’ – the fundamentalists – the costs of Brexit have always been irrelevant.”