What happened to Brexit meaning the end of Nissan’s Sunderland plant?

It would have to close down its factories. Thousands of job would be lost. Suppliers would be abandoned, and the local economy would be shattered for a generation.

It was sometimes a little hard to work out why a few hardcore Remainers cared quite so much about Nissan. Its range of mid-market, family SUVs were not the kind of cars they would usually be seen dead in. But somehow the company became emblematic of the whole bitter debate about how the British economy would suffer if we left the European Union. If we weren’t in the Single Market, we were told again and again, the business was doomed.

So today’s news from the company is, to put it mildly, slightly surprising. It turns out that Nissan is indeed restructuring its European manufacturing operations as it struggles with declining sales.