What the commentators said
“The case against Brexit will never be won by argument,” said Matthew Parris in The Times. The two sides are too entrenched in their positions. Only events that directly affect people’s lives will shift opinion now – events such as a large factory closure or the relocation of a corporate HQ. Watch this space. We should be sceptical about relocation threats, said Andrew Lilico on Capx. We’ve heard them many times before. Airbus threatened to relocate in the early 2000s if the UK didn’t join the euro. That never happened. People then warned that the firm would up sticks if the EU referendum resulted in a vote to leave. Yet this year, Airbus committed to staying in Britain “long into the future”. In any case, the scenario Airbus is fretting about – a disorderly no-deal Brexit – remains most unlikely.
Firms can’t afford to take that for granted, said Alex Barker and Peter Campbell in the FT: too many depend on frictionless access to EU markets. Take the Honda plant in Swindon. Two million components arrive at the factory every working day under its “just-in-time” production schedule. Some parts arrive only 75 minutes before being fitted. “Not a minute is wasted.” If Britain leaves the customs union, Honda estimates that it could take between two and nine days for parts to reach the plant. Brexiteers may think that Airbus et al are “stirring the pot on behalf of EU politicians”, said Nils Pratley in The Guardian, but there’s no conspiracy here. This is a hard-nosed reaction to “specific economic risks”.
A no-deal Brexit would be calamitous for the UK, said Wolfgang Münchau in the FT. But it’s very much in Germany’s interest, too, to reach a satisfactory settlement. Its car industry, already struggling with an “escalating diesel emissions scandal”, could soon be hit by damaging US tariffs. Were the UK to be forced into a cliff-edge Brexit in March next year, German carmakers could also end up facing tariffs in the UK, its largest export market. That would cripple the industry. Angela Merkel can’t afford to “persevere with a stance that could risk the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs. The last thing she needs is an intra-european trade war.”