Oh yeah, I see. I didn't look at the date!

I've found that it's usually best to find a local supplier, but that often ends up pretty expensive, especially in the UK where a lot of the manufacturing capability has now left.

 

Hi @john12

This then begs the question for me - will Brexit see a resurgence in the UK's manufacturing capability (assuming it does eventually go through). How will it impact the UK engineering industry?

Some may suggest what you gain with bringing everything "in house" to the UK, you might lose with limited scope to work with overseas partners. What do you think?

 

Hmm, possibly, but I think it's more of a case that now the capability has gone it won't come back, things will jst cost 10% (or whatever) more.

The costs of setting up a new manufacturing facility are probably so large that they still can't compete with overseas facilities (not to mention differences in labour costs), even when you take into account shipping and any potential tariffs.

I think it's good to have local options - if possible - just terms of speed and ease of communication, but usually price is main driver!

What do you reckon?

 

If we also look at the currency issue at the moment - 40 or so years ago there were $2 to the pound but we are at circa $1.23 now - there have been massive changes. It is (at the moment) far cheaper in real terms for overseas companies to buy products/services in the UK and consequently more expensive for UK companies to buy products and services from overseas.

In normal circumstances this would make it attractive to invest in UK manufacuring but if this is only a short term situation (who knows really) then it would be a risk. Very interesting times (times neither of us are likely to see again in our life times).

 

Not even 40 years ago really - it was about 1:2 back when I was in university 10-15 years ago!

Now there's so much uncertainty with Brexit that no wonder no one is investing in the UK, and companies are actively pulling out. It's like we've voted to inflict sanctions on ourselves!

I get paid in dollars so I got an immediate (effective) pay rise after the Brexit vote, but as a whole for the country it's economically terrible.

 

Is that so? Poland on the other hand is gaining a lot of importance due to Brexit. Many multinational companies are moving their headquarters here. The scope of development is just ground breaking. However, the government is trying to control the inflation due to such high business rise. So they are doing it by forcing companies to raising salaries and slowly they would probably change to Euro as their currency. But right now they are still in denial to use euros because the country doesn’t have reserves to be able to successfully do a currency change.

But those days are not far when Poland will be one of the richest in European union.

If companies are pulling out of Britain what is good about this Brexit ?

 

I agree! Nothing is good about Brexit (in my opinion). People have this weird idea about 'taking back control' but nothing will really change in that respect. If anything we'll actually lose control because we'll still have to effectively follow a lot of EU rules (in order to trade in the EU) but we will have no say in making them.

It's a terrible idea, in my opinion.

 

Why did the people of Britain vote for Brexit? Were they influenced by some political parties or any such thing?

Or did they just not think about the consequences and just jumped to conclusions about how foreigners in their land are causing a lot of trouble.

Will Brexit affect the citizens of other countries living in the great Britain in any way?

 

It's difficult to put it on one thing - the people campaigning to leave definitely made up quite a few lies that played on people's fears about immigration, jobs, "control" etc.

There have been so many people on the news who are basically losing their local funding (from the EU), losing their jobs etc. who just say, "Oh, I didn't realise this would affect me!"
Lots of people didn't think it through. The funny thing is that some of the areas that depended the most on EU assistance (like Cornwall) were the ones that voted most strongly to leave!