When Nissan’s chief executive warned this week that the car company’s future in Britain was not assured in the event of a hard Brexit, it was viewed by some as proof that leaving the European single market would not just cost British jobs but also devastate whole communities.
But in Washington, Sunderland, where most of Nissan’s 8,000 UK employees live and work, there was little sign of panic on Friday at Carlos Ghosn’s remarks. “It’s a bit of blackmail, really,” said an engineering consultant, one of 32,000 people supported by the car giant via its supply chain and dealerships. “It’s just a chance to get a few quid out of the government,” said his friend, who works for a metal fabrication company that has fitted out much of the Washington plant. He was one of 82,934 Mackems who voted to leave the EU, 61% of those who turned out in Sunderland.
The engineer lives in Boldon, a few miles north of Nissan’s gargantuan complex. “I’ve got friends who work there, from shop floor to management, and I can’t say they seem too perturbed. Every other family in Boldon has someone working there or at one of the tier-one suppliers and they’re not too worried. There’s no mass panic.”
Nonetheless, the men believed the government could not afford to play a game of chicken with Ghosn, who demanded compensation in the event of car exports being subjected to extra duties once Britain leaves the EU. “They’d have to pay it,” the engineer said. “It would be devastating for this area if it did close. The government would surely realise it would end up costing them more if they find themselves with 30,000-plus unemployed people who suddenly can’t pay their mortgages. Nissan knows that.”
Last year the Washington site, which makes Nissan’s Juke, Note, Qashqai, Infiniti and Leaf models, produced 500,237 vehicles – one in three UK-made cars.
Heading off to start the afternoon shift and assemble a few more models, one production line worker, who has been with Nissan for 18 years, said he was one of just two people in his 40-strong team to vote to stay in the EU. His 21-year-old son, who also works at the plant, voted out. Ghosn’s threats are not empty, he insisted. “I do believe Nissan would go if they don’t get assurances from the government. The business in Sunderland is very modular. Everything can be put on the back of a wagon and shopped to Spain. They are a business trying to make profit. At the end of the day we are just a small cog in a very big machine.”
Steve Bush, a Unite trade union representative at the Washington site, said if Ghosn had been clearer about his Brexit stance leading up to the vote it may have changed the local result. In the run-up to the referendum, Ghosn made clear Nissan’s preference was for the UK to remain part of the EU. But he made no threat to transfer production out of the UK – a position noted by many leave voters the Guardian spoke to in Sunderland just before the vote.
Bush said: “It was the company’s prerogative to be guarded about their position, I suppose. But if they had been a bit more vocal it may have changed the way people voted. There was a very high percentage of people voting to leave the EU which did raise eyebrows because of the investment the area has historically received from the EU. Maybe if they had known the company’s position it could have swayed votes.”
In their office on the Turbine business park, round the corner from the Nissan plant, two men in their 50s continued a long-running argument about the EU. Like everyone interviewed for this article, they asked for their names and company to be withheld – “I’ve got a business to run after all,” said the owner – who when the Guardian visited was completing a commission for one of Nissan’s most valued logistics providers.
He voted to stay in Europe; his colleague voted to leave, reasoning: “I voted in 1973 to join the common market, not a European superstate.”
The owner said he thought the government should call Nissan’s bluff. “We have already been decimated with the pits and shipyards closing down. It’s about time the government actually invested. They should have the balls to say to Nissan, ‘Fine, you leave. We’ll buy it and we’ll run it.’ I’d like to see that plant wholly UK-owned. Why can’t they step in and say, ‘Let’s build the best car in the world?’ Why do we have to be held to ransom by these fellas?”
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