Ross Clark Ross Clark

Why James Dyson isn’t a hypocrite for manufacturing in Singapore

Remainers’ first response to the news that James Dyson will build his new electric car in Singapore was to accuse him of hypocrisy. Here is a man who expects others to be patriotic, goes the argument, and yet when it comes to his own interests he dumps Britain and takes his business elsewhere. But those who try to make such accusations miss the point entirely. James Dyson has never argued for a protectionist, Britain-first policy. On the contrary, he has always argued for free and open markets. He just happens to think that those markets should extend beyond the borders of Europe.

Singapore has won Dyson’s business because it offers a lower-cost location which will enable the company to compete better in international markets. Over a decade ago Dyson made the same decision with its hoovers – it shifted production to South East Asia. For taking that decision, the company was pilloried by the unions – unions who would presumably have preferred Dyson to founder so long as it kept its British factories open until the last. That Dyson kept its research and development department in the UK – and the thousand jobs which went with it – was lost on its critics. Britain has not been overflowing with manufacturing successes, but it says a lot about the unions that they were prepared to attack a company that has excelled.

There are many Remainers who cannot get out of their heads that Leave-voters are entirely made up of Little Englanders in union jack outfits who have a misplaced notion about the superiority of their nation above all others and who are suspicious of foreigners and foreign-made goods.

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