Airbus warns of harsh Brexit reality with 100,000 jobs under threat as Government continues to bluster

Labour, as hard Brexit's midwife, will be as culpable if a no deal Brexit leads to the company closing the door on its UK operations

A British Airways Airbus 380. Its wings were built in Britain but will that be true for future planes? (British Airways)

“The dawning of reality,” is how Tom Williams, the chief operating officer of Airbus, described it, after warning that Airbus is seriously considering pulling out of the UK in the event of a no deal Brexit.

It’s worth taking a moment to consider what that would mean. The firm employs 14,000 people directly in this country. It has provided 4,000 high quality apprentices over the last decade, thus supporting a flagship policy of the Government. It contributed £1.7bn to the UK exchequer in tax last year, before you consider the economic contributions of its employees, who are in well paid, unionised jobs.

It is estimated that Airbus supports another 86,000 people through its supply chain, bringing the total number of jobs at risk to 100,000.

The companies in that supply chain, and their employees, further add to the tax take, and contribute to the economy.

If, when, Airbus does go, if it seeks alternatives when it comes to the production of its wings, those jobs will not be replaced.

Once they are gone, they are gone. Perhaps the Brextremists expect the people who held them to pick the fruit that the soft fruit industry has been warning about rotting in the fields for months?

It once again puts the shockingly mendacious talk by ministers of a “Brexit dividend” to fund the NHS - even Chancellor Philip Hammond has now descended into that pit - into context.

The economic damage if Airbus goes, and if other companies; car makers, and their suppliers, for example, do the same, no one will be talking about dividends. Quite the reverse.

Mr Hammond, a rare successful businessman in the cabinet, surely knew that when he touched on how the promised increased in funding for the service will be paid for in his Mansion House speech. But he went ahead anyway, such is the political climate in this country.

No wonder manufacturers like Airbus are despairing. They need frictionless trade and have been issuing warnings for months and months about the consequences for that of the course Theresa May & Co are pursuing, but every time they have raised the issues they face through the UK quitting the European Customs Union and the European Economic Area, they have been greeted with a tin ear.

If the harsh Brexit reality they warn of comes to pass, we should remember that it was never an inevitable consequence of the EU referendum result. The referendum merely called for the UK to leave the EU. It did not specify how.

The Government, and the Labour Party, which increasingly looks like the midwife of hard Brexit, have both opted to listen to extremists in choosing which road to follow since then, hence the Airbus announcement, and growing head of steam behind warnings from other industries about the consequences of the choices ministers have made, and Parliament has supported. They should be held accountable for those choices. It is sophistry for politicians to say they are doing as they were told.

It is particularly bewildering in the case of Labour: What is the point of the party if it puts a Tory project above the preservation of good, high quality, unionised manufacturing jobs?

The Government’s response to Mr Williams interview on the BBC Today Programme, is nothing he won't have heard a thousand times before: We’re going to get a deep and special partnership. We don’t expect a no deal, but we’re preparing for one, and threatening one, but that’s just negotiations! It’ll be OK buddy! Don’t you worry your sweet little head.

Worrying is what businessmen like Mr Williams; people who have do deal with hard realities, are doing. It’s a desperately sad fact that the UK may have to ship boatloads of jobs across the channel for Westminster to wake up to those realities.

And even then it may not be enough.