EU Referendum


EU Referendum: mind your own businesses


21/05/2015



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"I don't tell you how to build aircraft so don't tell us how to run our country", says the Complete Bastard in a pithy response to the unwanted intervention by Airbus president Paul Kahn into the referendum debate.

Apart from the very real problems with the A-400M, one model of which recently crashed near Seville airport, ironically on Europe Day, the company has serious commercial issues with the A-380. There are strong indications that they have chosen to build the wrong aircraft for the market.

With such problems, one might expect the senior management to be focused on what they are paid to do – managing their company. But even if they thought this political intervention was appropriate, Khan needs to consider revising his pitch and coming up with a more imaginative set of lies.

A decision to quit the EU would raise doubts about Airbus's long-term future investments in the country, he says, apparently thinking that his audience doesn't have the skills or wit to look up the company investment patterns. Perhaps Khan, like his contemporaries, believes we are as ill-informed as he is.

Presumably, he believes we are incapable of remembering the words of his colleague Fabrice Bregier, the company chief executive, who last year said that if the exchange rate remained stable and the UK government continued to support for the development of the aerospace industry, "there would be no reason for Airbus to change our strategy in the UK".

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Clearly, also, Khan doesn't think we are capable of looking up his own company's website on China, to find that Airbus will have invested nearly $500 million in Chinese manufacturing partnerships by the end of this year, including building the first assembly line outside of Europe. The A320 final assembly line in Tianjin began operations during September 2008.

Of this, one has to ask whether a decision by China to quit the EU would raise doubts about Airbus's long-term future investments in the country. But silly me! China isn't in the EU, so it can't leave. And if being outside the EU doesn't affect investment in China, why should it affect the British operation?

The same might be said of the United States, where Airbus is building a $600 million manufacturing facility for A-320s at Mobile, Alabama, to add to its Wichita engineering operation, ready to produce finished aircraft by the end of this year.

This plant is all part of the $140 billion Airbus has invested in the US since 1990, working with hundreds of American suppliers in more than 40 states. So one has to ask whether a decision by the US to quit the EU would raise doubts about Airbus's long-term future investments in the country. But silly me! The US isn't in the EU, so it can't leave. And if being outside the EU doesn't affect investment in the US, why should it affect the British operation?

Any which way you put it, Khan's facile, shallow threats don't stand up to scrutiny, any more that do the vapourings of the Deputy chairman of that vast criminal organisation, Barclays Bank.

Interestingly, its co-criminal conspirator, Citi Bank, is also an energetic FUD distributor, recently asserting that, if the UK were to disengage significantly or completely from the single market the implications could be "dramatic". The UK population would face a drop in living standards as a result of lower wages or a weaker pound so that the same export performance could be maintained within the EU. 

Jim Cowles, Citi's chief executive for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, told the Financial Times of "mounting concern" among clients about their ability to continue using the UK as a regional hub if the country were to exit.

We've also been getting similar rhetoric from Deutsche Bank, another criminal enterprise that recently had to pay a $2.5 billion fine to settle the investigations into the Libor rigging involvement. It now faces a potential shareholder revolt over the poor management of the company, the profits growth, mounting regulatory fines, and restructuring plans.

"Last but not least, we are very concerned about of Deutsche Bank. It's not just the money. The findings of the regulators suggest very serious misconduct. It's something we think the management is responsible for," says one of the larger shareholders.

Yet Chuka Umunna, Labour's business spokesman, wants company managers tell staff about upsides of staying in EU, asserting that local and regional bosses are best placed to show workers the consequences of a possible Brexit.

Umunna himself, it rather appears, needs to spend more time with his own portfolio, and has clearly lost the plot in believing that our thieving and incompetent corporates have anything useful to add to the EU referendum debate.

Campaigners from both sides of the divide, and especially those in the proto "out" campaign, need to be telling businesses to mind their own businesses, and to stop interfering in matters that are not their business.

They may feel entitled to express concern about matters that directly affect their enterprises, and ask for their needs to be taken into account – and even support the sides that they believe represent their views, but they are not entitled to spread lies and scare stories in order to influence the debate.

And, in the final analysis, how we the people are governed is no concern of theirs. These businesses should be very, very careful about abusing their power and influence. Public patience is wearing thin.