Since I postulated in my last post that British companies with component manufacturing supply chains on the continent may be in the pocket of Brussels, and that in turn the Conservative Party may be the recipient of donations from those companies, I have received the following list of companies, which is just a selection apparently, that have moved their manufacturing to Europe with the help of EU subsidies. I have not been able to verify this list for myself but as you will see it is very specific, and so I challenge the Prime Minister to say whether or not it is accurate.
– Cadbury moved to Poland 2011 with an EU grant.
– Ford Transit moved to Turkey 2013 with an EU grant.
– Jaguar Land Rover (now a wholly owned subsidiary of Tata who mis-sold and decimated British Steel pension funds) recently agreed to build a new plant in Slovakia with an EU grant.
– Peugeot closed its Ryton (was Rootes Group) plant and moved production to Slovakia with an EU grant.
– The British Army’s new Ajax combat vehicles are to be built in Spain using Swedish steel, at the request of the EU, to support jobs in Spain with an EU grant, rather than Wales.
– Crown Closures (formerly Metal Box) has been relocated to Poland with an EU grant.
– Gillette has been relocated to Eastern Europe with an EU grant.
– Texas Instruments, Greenock has been relocated to Germany with EU grant.
– Sekisui Alveo’s production at its Merthyr Tydfil Industrial Park foam plant has been relocated to the Netherlands, with EU funding.
– The Hoover Merthyr factory has been relocated to the Czech Republic and the Far East with EU backing.
– Boots was sold to Italian Stefano Pessina who is based in Switzerland to avoid tax, using an EU loan for the purchase.
– The Mini cars which David Cameron stood in front of to showcase British engineering, are built by BMW mostly in Holland and Austria. His campaign bus was made in Germany even though we have Plaxton, Optare, Bluebird, Dennis etc., in the UK.
Anyone who believes the EU is good for British industry or any other business simply hasn’t paid attention to what has been systematically asset-stripped from the UK.
I have checked this list of companies with the Conservative Party’s returns of donors on the Electoral Commission’s website. Unfortunately those results do not show anything before 1st January 2017 (why?) and there were no matches since then, but that does not mean donations could not have been laundered through some other institution. So again I challenge the Prime Minister to deny there is any connection between these two lists.
Either way this situation is clearly appalling and unacceptable, so once again I call for the ending of all donations from institutions to registered political parties and for the introduction of modest state proportional funding as well as proportional representation. Only registered voters should be allowed to donate to registered political parties in this country.
John Poynton 