Prime Minister Keir Starmer at the JLR plant in Solihull (Image: Getty)
The noisy Jaguar Land Rover factory in Solihull wasn’t the best place to hear Sir Keir Starmer’s speech. The sounds of a giant and complex assembly line almost drowned out the Prime Minister, even though he had the benefit of a microphone and speaker system. It would take more than a visit from No 10 to bring this mighty factory to a halt.
But it certainly made for a striking backdrop and vividly illustrated just what was at stake. The Prime Minister stood at the end of the production line, where finished Range Rovers left the factory for sale to eager customers in Britain, Europe, India, China, and, of course, the US.
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The question facing the 9,000 workers at the West Midlands plant, and the 35,000 Jaguar Land Rover (known as JLR) staff at other sites across the country, was whether Donald Trump might succeed where the Prime Minister failed and put a stop to production – perhaps for good.
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Not that anyone wanted to express this fear out loud. JLR has already suspended exports to the US but only for a month – and there are other markets, of course. Perhaps they’ll weather the storm.
Sir Keir had some good news for British carmakers. As expected, the sale of standard new petrol and diesel cars will be banned from 2030, but carmakers will now be allowed to sell hybrid vehicles, which have both traditional and electric engines, until 2035.
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He also pledged to step up the provision of charging points across the country.
Along with a few other tweaks, this may provide some relief to car firms such as JLR, which are struggling with a huge problem. The Government wants them to sell electric cars to motorists, but motorists seem reluctant to buy them and are sticking to what they know.
But the truth is Sir Keir cannot do anything about the real problem, which is that Mr Trump’s decision to impose a 25% tariff on imported cars from every country, alongside a 10% tariff on other British-made products, will hit firms like JLR hard.
And the Prime Minister pretty much admitted this, telling his audience: “This is not a passing phase.” He added: “This is a changing and completely new world.”
There were a lot of fine words that his audience will no doubt have appreciated. “We have your back,” the Prime Minister told them. Britain is still a manufacturing nation, he said, telling JLR staff: “We are really proud of you as a country.”
And, of course, he mentioned that his own father was in manufacturing.
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But the point that stuck out was that this crisis isn’t ending soon. Even if the UK manages to sign some sort of trade deal with Donald Trump’s America – a big if – that doesn’t mean the global chaos will end or that British firms will be immune to it.
Perhaps the most telling comment, though, came from Jaguar chief executive Adrian Mardell, who introduced the PM and Chancellor Rachel Reeves.
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Mr Mardell reminded his audience that JLR is a huge success story, with global sales of 428,854 vehicles over 12 months, including 189,000 built at the Land Rover plant (and these are expensive, luxury vehicles).
He welcomed the Prime Minister’s announcements. But he went on to say: “We all recognise we face a significant threat,” and asked the Government to continue to help the car industry to “resolve” them.
In other words, very politely and diplomatically, Mr Mardell appeared to suggest that what the Prime Minister has announced so far isn’t quite enough.