Post by buccaneer on May 21, 2023 6:07:08 GMT
Been trying to tell the remnants this, but it falls on deaf ears for some odd reason. Only negative headlines and misinformation will do for this lot.
www.briefingsforbritain.co.uk/another-week-of-brexit-fake-news/
It's these kinds of nonsense stories that keep the likes of Kim and Gnome alive, otherwise they'd have nothing to live for.
The most prominent of our stories relates to the car industry. One industry source this week claimed that without changes to UK-EU trading rules, ‘800,000’ jobs in the UK car industry were at risk. This story relates to problems with the local content rules that exist in the UK-EU trade and cooperation agreement (TCA) that specify that a certain share of the value of cars traded between the UK and EU must consist of UK or EU content, with this share set to rise over time. An issue has arisen with this because a large share of the value of electric vehicles, chiefly batteries, consists of non-UK or EU content.
There is a genuine issue here, but the story run in the press was very misleading for a number of reasons:
The number of jobs quoted as at risk was ridiculous.
The only way you can get such a high figure is to count not only the 180,000 people employed directly in car manufacturing but also all the employment in the supply chain including retailers and dealers (see here). It is obviously absurd to claim all these jobs are in danger due to issues relating to exports to one destination of one type of vehicle. Petrol cars (still 2/3 of output) are unaffected by this local content issue, as are exports to non-EU destinations (60% of the value of UK car exports) and sales to the domestic market. Moreover, the maximum tariff the EU would levy on UK car exports, if the local content issue is not dealt with, is 10%. This would certainly be a problem for some manufacturers but not all.
The problem isn’t just a UK one.
This is also an issue for European manufacturers wishing to sell to the UK under the TCA. German manufacturers are calling for the local content rules in the TCA to be watered down or delayed to preserve their market share in the UK – a market that takes around a fifth of German car exports. The symmetrical nature of this problem makes a deal to solve it more likely.
The problem isn’t just about a lack of battery making capacity in the UK.
It has been claimed that this problem relates to a lack of battery making capacity in the UK, with much fulminating about the failure of Britishvolt. But the problem is again Europe-wide. Under the TCA batteries from the EU would count towards the local content needs in UK exports to the EU but there is a lack of battery-making capacity in the EU as well. The local content rules in the TCA were supposed to incentivise the industry to onshore battery production from Asia but have signally failed to do so.
The problem isn’t just about battery making.
Even if batteries are made in Europe, the TCA rules mean that they may not be counted as local content. This is because the TCA rules specify that from 2024, 60% of batteries’ value must be locally derived and the battery cannot contain non-originating active cathode material. As explained here, this means it’s not enough to build a ‘gigafactory’ for batteries – you need to produce the cells and chemicals the battery uses too. The capacity to do this in Europe does not exist as yet.
Overall then, what we have here is a story about a failed attempt to force rapid onshoring of battery manufacturing in Europe which is now a potential headache for manufacturers across the continent. Some kind of deal to push the problem down the road is likely, but even in the absence of one, claims that it will eliminate hundreds of thousands of UK jobs are nonsense.
There is a genuine issue here, but the story run in the press was very misleading for a number of reasons:
The number of jobs quoted as at risk was ridiculous.
The only way you can get such a high figure is to count not only the 180,000 people employed directly in car manufacturing but also all the employment in the supply chain including retailers and dealers (see here). It is obviously absurd to claim all these jobs are in danger due to issues relating to exports to one destination of one type of vehicle. Petrol cars (still 2/3 of output) are unaffected by this local content issue, as are exports to non-EU destinations (60% of the value of UK car exports) and sales to the domestic market. Moreover, the maximum tariff the EU would levy on UK car exports, if the local content issue is not dealt with, is 10%. This would certainly be a problem for some manufacturers but not all.
The problem isn’t just a UK one.
This is also an issue for European manufacturers wishing to sell to the UK under the TCA. German manufacturers are calling for the local content rules in the TCA to be watered down or delayed to preserve their market share in the UK – a market that takes around a fifth of German car exports. The symmetrical nature of this problem makes a deal to solve it more likely.
The problem isn’t just about a lack of battery making capacity in the UK.
It has been claimed that this problem relates to a lack of battery making capacity in the UK, with much fulminating about the failure of Britishvolt. But the problem is again Europe-wide. Under the TCA batteries from the EU would count towards the local content needs in UK exports to the EU but there is a lack of battery-making capacity in the EU as well. The local content rules in the TCA were supposed to incentivise the industry to onshore battery production from Asia but have signally failed to do so.
The problem isn’t just about battery making.
Even if batteries are made in Europe, the TCA rules mean that they may not be counted as local content. This is because the TCA rules specify that from 2024, 60% of batteries’ value must be locally derived and the battery cannot contain non-originating active cathode material. As explained here, this means it’s not enough to build a ‘gigafactory’ for batteries – you need to produce the cells and chemicals the battery uses too. The capacity to do this in Europe does not exist as yet.
Overall then, what we have here is a story about a failed attempt to force rapid onshoring of battery manufacturing in Europe which is now a potential headache for manufacturers across the continent. Some kind of deal to push the problem down the road is likely, but even in the absence of one, claims that it will eliminate hundreds of thousands of UK jobs are nonsense.
It's these kinds of nonsense stories that keep the likes of Kim and Gnome alive, otherwise they'd have nothing to live for.
