NISSAN announced contingency plans to pull-out of the EU and beef up its UK plant if trade talks increase barriers, it emerged last night.
In a major boost to Boris Johnson’s negotiating hand, the major car manufacturer would double down on production in the UK where it believes it could sell one in five of all vehicles.
Under the plans – leaked to the Financial Times – Nissan would close its struggling plants in Barcelona and stop manufacturingin France.
But its Sunderland plant would stay open and could even increase production as part of a plan to steal UK market share from other car makers who would be hit by the tariffs on UK-EU trade.
Boris Johnson will use a speech in London today to call for a Canada-style free trade agreement.
If the EU doesn’t agree, Boris will threaten to walk away.
He will say: “There is no need for a free trade agreement to involve accepting EU rules.”
The PM will begin bigging up the prospect of trading with the EU on World Trade Organisation terms if EU bosses don’t play ball.
He will say: “We have often been told that we must choose between full access to the EU market, along with accepting its rules and courts on the Norway model, or an ambitious free trade agreement, which opens up markets and avoids the full panoply of EU regulation, on the example of Canada.”
“We have made our choice – we want a free trade agreement, similar to Canada’s but in the very unlikely event that we do not success, then our trade will have to be based on our existing Withdrawal Agreement with the EU.”
“The question is whether we agree a trading relationship with the EU comparable to Canada’s – or more like Australia’s.”
HOARderland plant currently employs around 6000 people, and is one of the major employers in the north-east of England.
Building up manufacturing in Sunderland could give a huge boost to their UK market share from 4 per cent to 20 per cent.
Nissan believes it could account for a fifth of the entire car market in the UK.
Nissan’s models would have a competitive advantage to UK consumers compared to its rivals such as Ford and Volkswagen, whose cars would face tariffs, making them more expensive in Britain.
The plan much needed good news for employees – in the last few years Nissan has cut hundreds of jobs at the Sunderland plant because not enough people were buying diesel cars.
It then cancelled the production of two of its models at the plant in a devastating move for workers.
A spokesman for Nissan denied they had Brexit contingency plans.
They said: “We’ve modelled every possible ramification of Brexit and the fact remains that our entire business both in the UK and in Europe is not sustainable in the event of WTO tariffs.”
“We continue to urge the UK and EU negotiators to work collaboratively towards an orderly, balanced Brexit that will continue to encourage mutually beneficial trade.”
UK car production has been struggling badly – hitting its lowest point in almost a decade last year.
Factories produced almost 200,000 less units last year than 2018 – the third year of decline.
