Whilst Welsh Labour Are Not To Blame For The Situation At Ford Bridgend Failure To Act Will Not Leave it Blameless To Its Consequences

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

I will say first before going on that you will find I've repeated a few things from earlier posts here. No apologies for that, as the situation regarding Ford's engine plant has moved from serious to critical.

Though no longer living in Bridgend I still work there and was about to get ready yesterday for the afternoon/evening shift when I saw an item as breaking news on Twitter. Jaguar Land Rover's contract to build engines in the plant will end three months earlier than planned at September 2020. Instantly that news was across tweetworld in various languages as well. It was considered that important and serious.

Now of course September 2020 is three years ahead. We all hope that in the meantime Ford can negotiate a contract that will replace the one that will be lost. But since March the mood music from the American car giant has not been good regarding the plant, mainly citing the consequences of the Brexit vote. Since that vote to leave the EU, and despite what the mainly right and far right wingers misled the people with, Britain has not "taken back control" from Brussels. In the case of the Bridgend engine plant control has moved across the Atlantic to Detroit.

Now the situation that the Welsh Labour government is facing is not of it's doing. However it needs to act now to deal with its consequences or it will not be blameless.

With the proposed closure of Tata Steel just over a year ago and the actual future closure of a major Tesco call centre in Cardiff the Welsh Labour government has shown itself reactive rather than proactive with regard to such events. It needs to offer even more incentives now to keep Ford in Bridgend. Of course it will cost. But the economic and social consequences of Ford leaving Bridgend will be far greater.

(As an aside local Labour AMs has suggested that the engine work that Jaguar's engines will be produced in a their own factory in Wolverhampton following a "sweetheart deal" with the Westminster government. If this is true then they are right to state that the Westminster Tory government should team up with the Welsh Labour administration so that such a deal could be offered to Ford as well. If there is a sense that England has profited at Wales' expense with the help of Westminster then the resentment it will cause will be palpable. It would be an industrial Tryweryn.

If  that did happen people will realise that Independence is the only way that the people who are born or have chosen to live in Wales can be confident that their wellbeing is considered more important than middle England.

Not even the most ardent nationalist (like me) would actually want independence because of this scenario. We do not want to glory in the misery of good people. But if the Labour AMs are correct as a long term consequence it cannot be ignored)

No one wants the engine plant to close down. The ripple out effect to people and their families as well as the South Wales economy would be on a level not seen since the nineteen eighties. But there is another factor to consider. Until moving away from the area in May one of the constant running themes of this blog was the decline of various parts of the Bridgend area, particularly Bridgend Town, because of the incompentence of the Welsh Labour council (indeed it was one of the reasons that drew me to Plaid Cymru).If Ford did close down the plant then it would be a body blow not just for the people,their families and the surrounding community but also on the area itself as it's already in decline.

Welsh Labour, in either national or local government mode, need to make a strong investment in the Bridgend area now. And I don't mean the sort of grandiose projects that for some reason they're attracted to (like killing the 135 year old Maesteg indoor market to install a library as part of a "cultural hub") more like investment in renewing what's already there.

Rather like their UK counterparts Welsh Labour should indulge in a bit of wargaming. They should ask themselves the consequences for the Bridgend area of a closure of the plant. No one wants it. But no one will forgive the Welsh Labour government either if they did not plan for this should it occur.

Carwyn Jones the First Minister must surely realise the importance of acting now with regard to Ford's engine plant in Bridgend, after all he's the assembly member for the area. Should he fail to act now and the worst case scenario occurs then he should accept Welsh Labour's share of the blame and resign.

Until the next time.