I am one of the local residents that you may have seen recently protesting against a No Deal Brexit outside your main gates in Sunderland. We are there to support you and your jobs as we know how important the plant is to the region. I grew up around the corner from this factory, and can just about remember the excitement of it being built here to save the area from economic disaster after the pits closed.
Let us be clear, this is not a protest against Nissan. We know that it is not a charity and needs good profits to keep running in the area. We know that for this to happen you need zero tariffs and have stated this for a long time.
This is rather a protest against the government who are risking the plant’s future by refusing to rule out a No Deal Brexit which chief operating officer, Ashwani Gupta, said would make their Sunderland factory unsustainable. In addition to the 7,000 jobs at risk at the Nissan plant itself, we are also very concerned about the 24,000 jobs in the supply chain that would also be at risk. This includes jobs on Teesside at Nifco and AV Dawson.
Photo by Sylvia Zamperini
Thank you for all your honks of support when you see us standing there, it means a lot.
This issue is of great importance to us and therefore we will have to hang around for a wee while doing this until it’s all resolved, if that is okay?
