Unite calls on MPs to vote down Theresa May’s Brexit deal tomorrow when it is brought to Parliament.
The deal utterly fails to protect the jobs and working rights of our members. At best it offers us all – from manufacturing to transport and services – another 21 months of uncertainty with no promise of the deal we need at the end of it.
The deal fails every test Unite has set.
We demanded a deal to defend jobs, a deal which protects and enhances union-won working rights and a deal which prevents a hard land or sea border for Northern Ireland.
Instead we are offered a deal with no job security, no protections for our rights at work and drags the UK out of safety bodies such as EASA, EURATOM and pharmaceutical protections.
After two years of failed Tory negotiations with the EU, the document the government has published – with no guarantees or detail – is as uncertain for Britain as a no deal scenario. No wonder the Tories won’t publish their impact assessments of the deal – they know there’s absolutely no good news to share.
Many of you have been in touch with me to ask what the deal means specifically for our members in the automotive sector. Please see below for the latest statement from our Automotive National Industrial Sector Committee.
“Be in no doubt that a no deal Brexit would be a disaster for our industry. The experiment in chaos on the motorways of Kent proved exactly what would happen. Our sector relies on 1,100 trucks crossing the channel every day, yet even the 89 lorries which took part in the government’s trial experienced the sort of delays which would bring production to a halt in car plants across the country. If that’s the dress rehearsal, the real thing would mean the immediate severing of Just In Time supply chains and the sudden imposition of barriers with our largest export market. The cost would be measured in millions and we know exactly how employers would act to recoup that loss.
Many thousands of automotive jobs rely on Britain’s exit from the EU being orderly, with concrete plans in place to mitigate any damage and prevent any new barriers. Neither Theresa May’s deal or the Government’s farcical no deal plans provide for that.”
Sadly, all the sectors we represent as a union have similar concerns.
As a result, we utterly reject the deal and I am calling on you to stand with us, vote it down and fight for a Brexit that works for the many and not the few.
