'Disgraceful' move on Airbus

Commenting on the decision of the UK government to withdraw from sanctions against Boeing, Unite’s assistant general secretary for manufacturing, Steve Turner, said, “Today’s announcement that the UK government is unilaterally withdrawing from EU wide sanctions on the US giant Boeing in a long drawn out dispute with Airbus will send shockwaves through the UK’s manufacturing communities and will affect workers well beyond the aerospace sector.

“It is a disgraceful act of harm and one which could derail efforts to get any sort of post-Brexit trade agreement with the EU,” he added.

“Furthermore, it appears to have been done without any reciprocal move from the United States on punitive tariffs placed on UK products such as Scottish whisky. This is absolutely not a move in the interests of the nation nor its workers.

“It comes in a week of blows for UK manufacturing,” Turner continued. “Our ports are congested and warehousing full as fears over future trade lead to stockpiling. Honda and Toyota are trying to avert supply chain chaos destabilising their business and Jim Ratcliffe has opted to build his Defender not in Wales, as promised with the creation of hundreds of jobs, but in France which has access to the single market.

“As the prime minister heads to Brussels, he must send a signal to the millions of workers, families and communities who depend on manufacturing in this country for a job and an income that he has their backs, and not that he has, in effect, turned his back on them as that is very much how it looks from where we stand.”

By Barckley Sumner