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Honda set to close Swindon car plant

I’ve ‘done it before’ because it’s important that people understand that the collapse of the sector isn’t a recent development that has occurred as a result of people voted to leave a failing trading bloc. It’s a slow motion decline with periodic sharper cyclical structural downturns in late capitalist economies.

I’m glad you’ve flagged the wider sector because this is where the major impact of capital flight will bite. We don’t ‘make cars’ we asssmble them. It’s where the parts are made that is critical in terms of wider employment in the sector and in assembly. This is why the FTA between Japan and Europe is so damaging for reasons which should be blindingly obvious to those desperate to blame Brexit but seemingly aren’t.
The UK designs, engineers, manufactures and assembles cars, which doesn't fit your narrative of the tail end but is nonetheless true. There are a whole bunch of reasons why a large proportion of automotive remains in developed, expensive economies like the UK or Japan.
 
Honda has confirmed plans to shut its factory in Swindon in 2021 with the loss of 3,500 jobs.

The decision is not Brexit related, the BBC’s Today Programme has been told by Ian Howells of Honda.

“We are in a position where out investment and focus needs to go somewhere else, it can’ be in the UK,” he said, blaming the move on the ‘global outlook’.

In a statement, the Japanese firm told workers it proposed to close the vehicle manufacturing plant at the end of the current model’s production lifecycle.
The plant currently produces 150,000 cars a year.

The statement said: “This proposal comes as Honda accelerates its commitment to electrified cars, in response to the unprecedented changes in the global automotive industry.

“The significant challenges of electrification will see Honda revise its global manufacturing operations, and focus activity in regions where it expects to have high production volumes.”

Labour warned over bigger split as cabinet briefed on latest talks with Brussels - Politics live

They are also closing their factory in Turkey, which clearly has nothing to do with Brexit.
 
The UK designs, engineers, manufactures and assembles cars, which doesn't fit your narrative of the tail end but is nonetheless true. There are a whole bunch of reasons why a large proportion of automotive remains in developed, expensive economies like the UK or Japan.

Yes. There are a ‘whole bunch of reasons’. That’s my point
 
They are also closing their factory in Turkey, which clearly has nothing to do with Brexit.

It is also closing a factory in Japan. It’s the first time they’ve closed a Japanese factory I believe. That’s part of a wider rationalisation corporate plan - something else missed in the reporting of this story
 
Swindon has a long and successful history as an engineering town.
The railway engineering works built the town. In fact the rail works encouraged companies like Vickers Aircraft to the area due to the high level of skilled engineers.
When the rail works closed in the early eighties the impact was huge. Fortunately Honda moved in, actually onto the site of the old Vickers works. The skill levels have always been there and it will be difficult to replace these jobs.
By 2021 the site will no doubt be ready for yet another redevelopment into more distribution warehouses, retail parks and call centres.
I suppose Norman Tebnit would say’get on your bike again!’
In truth there are hundreds of vacancies for skilled engineers around here at the moment. But how many workers will swap Wiltshire for South Yorkshire?
 
They are also closing their factory in Turkey, which clearly has nothing to do with Brexit.
Maybe, but when when you're finding solace in the knowledge that de-industrialisation of the UK is just because of other folks' economic nationalism and cynical corporate wrecking it don't reflect well on the sunlit uplands.
 
Let’s see what the official announcement says. But the Japanese factory closure is confirmed.
Fortunately we don't need to wait: Honda announces global automobile manufacturing restructure
The global restructure will also involve Honda’s automobile operations in Turkey. Honda Turkiye A.S. currently produces 38,000 units per year. The company will cease manufacturing current Civic sedan model in 2021 and intends to continue its business operations. Honda Turkiye A.S. will continue to hold constructive dialogue with Turkish stakeholders during this period.
So he lied, again.
 
"continue its business operations" doesn't imply to me they are continuing manufacturing, although it's not 100% clear, TBH.
 
Looking at car manufacturing as a whole in these times of ‘Green’
industrial practices and minimising overproduction. How many millions of slightly used cars are stood on British car sale forecourts?
 
I think they are closing half of the factory as the civic is also assembled there

Yet this report claims they stopping production of the Civic.

The company will also stop making its Civic car model at its Turkey plant from 2021 but plans to continue its operations in the country, Honda chief executive Takahiro Hachigo told a news conference in Tokyo.
Honda confirms closure of UK plan in 2021 - Independent.ie

It appears to be a case of 'breaking news' confusion all round. :facepalm:
 
Looking at car manufacturing as a whole in these times of ‘Green’
industrial practices and minimising overproduction. How many millions of slightly used cars are stood on British car sale forecourts?
Yep, but seeing folk line up with tory dissemblers clinging onto the corporate 'logic' of neoliberalism for fear that their 'project' be blamed reminds me why I spoilt my referendum ballot paper.
 
It should be clear by now to even the dimmest remainer that their glee at this announcement as proof at last of their Brexit apocalypse narrative - as well as being a fucking disgrace - was badly wide of the mark.
 
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Yep, but seeing folk line up with tory dissemblers clinging onto the corporate 'logic' of neoliberalism for fear that their 'project' be blamed reminds me why I spoilt my referendum ballot paper.

Who has done that?

The nexus of reasons - at the heart of which is corporately planned obsolescence and capital flight - has been set out.

I’d add it’s not about defending Brexit more about reminding supposed lefts and liberals that their obsession with it is letting capital off the hook in all sorts of ways
 
I think Honda's closing is a sign of things to come, and that over the next decade many more factories will shut down; perhaps even entire car companies will go to the wall. It looks like we have passed peak internal combustion car production, and that battery-electric vehicles will take an ever-increasing share of the market. At the same time the car market itself will start shrinking, as Uber-type ridesharing, and then self-driving cars that provide "transport as a service", reduce the requirement for car ownership. It's pretty unpleasant for all the displaced workers, but being such a predictable trend, governments could and should plan for it.

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ICE cars are on the way out, that's a given, and I think personally-owned cars are too, but these don't inherently correlate to a reduction in vehicle production or a significant change to how they're produced.
 
I think they are closing half of the factory as the civic is also assembled there

There's now several sources saying they are totally closing their factory operations in Turkey, the 'continuing its business operation' seems to refer to sales & marketing.

And, their European HQ will remain in the UK.

Honda will also close its Turkish plant, which builds the Civic sedan and produces about 38,000 vehicles a year, but intends to continue sales and marketing operations in the country, Honda said.
Honda will close U.K., Turkey plants in restructuring move

The restructuring will also involve Honda's business in Turkey, which currently produces 38,000 Civic sedans per year. That will cease in 2021.
Honda said that production would shift to Japan, North America and China.
Honda is closing its only UK factory in Swindon, putting 3,500 jobs at risk - CNN
 
Since this announcement was first rumoured I have had my eyes open looking for a Honda that is less than 5 years old. Haven't seen one. I don't know anyone who owns a Honda, (an ex has bought a 4 year old one, the boy-racer one, but I have no contact with her beyond her Instagram feed). Could the fact that no one is buying their cars have any bearing on this?
 
The EU/JP FTA (which the UK govt voted for) enables movement, it doesn’t cause it. Honda manufacturing doesn't magically all come home to Japan if all costs are made equal.
For example NAFTA spread US vehicle production slightly across the continent but it certainly didn't kill it. In a couple of years it looks like Britain will be done making cars again.
I want to be clear exactly what you are arguing for here. Are you arguing in favour of (more) free trade agreements?
 
Well that's what I want to understand. Whether you see free trade agreements as good, bad or neutral.
None of the above - depends whose interests you have in mind, and what the alternative is. Trumpian halfwitted tariffs & the resultant trade wars aren't exactly helping US auto workers, but neither is the direct transfer of production to Canada or Mexico under NAFTA.

The discussion, however, wasn't holding up current FTAs as anything other than not fatal to UK automotive manufacturing.
 
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