Someone in the City asked me recently just what exactly the Government stood for any longer, other than spending lots of money to buy votes in the North. Sadly, it was quite difficult to give a convincing answer. The best I could come up with was to make Brexit work, but where so far is the beef?
The announcement from Nissan last week of a new gigafactory to power next generation electric cars was admittedly great news, particularly coming from a company which had repeatedly threatened to pull out of the UK if it dared to leave the EU.
It none the less required a big taxpayer subsidy to make it happen, together with an EU trade deal which, though it seems to have saved or even bolstered our largely foreign-owned car industry, sold the City, Northern Ireland and Britain’s fishermen down the river. Sunderland will appreciate the trade off; Southerners, Ulstermen and shellfish hunters, not so much.
So far, the burgeoning array of needy, Brexit-validating trade deals the Government has managed to sign off on since Britain left the single market has failed to make significant…
