JLR investment puts UK in Brexit’s driving seat

BREXIT Britain is on course for a huge win as car giant Jaguar Land Rover announces plans to build a giant factory in the UK.

JLR, as the firm is known, had been considering a site in Spain for the multibillion pound project.

But it appears set to announce that it has picked Somerset as the home for a new factory building batteries for electric cars.

This shows that the doom-mongers got it wrong. Brexit’s critics claimed that leaving the European Union would devastate the economy and cause investors to flee.

Instead, JLR is expected to create an additional 9,000 jobs here while the decision also highlights the carmaker’s commitment to its existing plants in the West Midlands and Merseyside.

Firms such as JLR have a choice about where to invest.The carmaker is an historic British brand but it is owned by Indian giant Tata Motors, which is not motivated by sentiment.

If it made sense for Tata to invest in the EU then that’s what it would do. Instead, it has concluded that the UK is the best place to do business.

More details of the proposal will emerge in the days to come but we know these battery factories, known as giga-factories because of their size, require government subsidies wherever they are built.

This is money well-spent because of the huge contribution they make to national economies.

Brexit has freed the UK to make its own decisions on state aid and it will come as no surprise if this was a factor in JLR’s historic decision.