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Kemi Badenoch, the business and trade secretary, has said that the problem raised by car manufacturers worried about exports to the EU facing tariffs from next year “isn’t to do with Brexit”.
She made the comment during business questions in the Commons, where Jonathan Reynolds, her Labour shadow, criticised her record since she has been in post. He told MPs:
It’s now been 100 days since we first welcomed [her] to her new post. In that time we’ve seen steel production fall to record lows, the automotive sector has issued warning cry after warning cry that government policy risks shipping jobs overseas.
The issue that the automotive industries are talking about is around rules of origin. This is something that the EU are also worried about because the costs of the components have risen.
This isn’t to do with Brexit, this is to do with supply chain issues following the pandemic and the war in Russia and Ukraine.
The intervention is the belated fulfilment of Brexit advocates’ hope that German carmakers would step in to EU-UK negotiations to protect their own sales.