BMW is planning to move production of the Mini to Turkey, if the government fails to secure a post Brexit trade deal that allows components to be moved in and out of the UK free of tariffs.
The German automotive giant announced last week that it is planning a one month “production holiday” at its Cowley plant near Oxford, after March 29th, in which to examine its options.
However according a mole in the BMW headquarters in deepest Bavaria, the company has no intention of restarting production in the UK and has already begun moves to lease an empty factory space at Izmir in the west of Turkey, where it plans to re-start production by the middle of next year.
“Turkey has been part of the customs union since January 1995, so there are no trade barriers, and with low labour costs and a young and well educated population, it’s a perfect base for a new production venture – unlike the UK which is full of fat, gammon-faced old people who don’t know the difference between ‘there, they’re and their’, and want everything for free,” he explained.
The move appears certain to generate strong opposition from across the political spectrum in the UK.
Anti Brexit groups have been quick to point out that manufacturers have been warning about the impossibility of maintaining complex cross border supply chains since before the referendum, and the predictability of BMW‘s decision to send Mini away from UK shores, 60 years after the first model was launched in 1959.
However others have noted a certain aptness in the planned move, given that the designer of the original Mini, Sir Alec Issigonis, was born and brought up in Izmir and had never set foot in Britain before his arrival aged 16 in 1923.
“He arrived as a refugee, penniless, with his widowed German mother,” explained UK car history expert Alvis Riley pointing out the irony, of the “fright adverts” warning of a that fear of a surge of migrants from Turkey used by the Leave campaign.
“Can you imagine a 16 year old Turkish lad or for that matter a Syrian refugee, being allowed into the UK nowadays, and for him to go on to be single-handedly responsible for designing? one of the most iconic British brands,” he asked before answering his own question:
“Of course not, he’d have been stuck in camp in Calais, or in Turkey or Germany – because the UK refuses to accept refugees,” he laughed.
The BMW mole was able to confirm to LCD views that the irony of Issigonis‘ origins has not escaped the company’s marketing department which has already bought up the rights to a popular English tune with which to advertise the move.
“It’s coming home, it’s coming home…Mini’s coming home…..has ein zertain ring to it, don’t you tzink,” he smiled.