Airbus has announced new plans to invest £100 million in beefing up its Broughton manufacturing plant over the next few years, creating more than 500 jobs at the site as the company ramps up aircraft production as it emerges from the pandemic. We have take-off…

This will be a bit of a surprise to those who believed the Remain campaign’s scaremongering. Guido’s old enough to remember when Will Straw, executive director of “Britain Stronger in Europe”, paraded around with the company’s UK’s president to scaremonger about Brexit and act as though leaving the EU would send the country into a tailspin:

“The success of Airbus Group’s operations in the UK, which depend on European industrial organisation and integration, are a clear demonstration of the economic benefit the UK receives from EU membership. If the UK exits the EU, there are likely to be significant changes to the regulatory and economic environment with subsequent impacts on our competitiveness.”

Airbus even donated to the losing anti-Brexit campaign, George Osborne would tour the Airbus facilities, hard hat and high-vis jacket and all, to pretend the UK’s access to the single market was what allowed all that investment to happen. In an interview with Andrew Neil, he even brandished a part from a plane wing and claimed those parts might not even be manufactured in the UK if we left the EU. He sat there bickering with Neil, prop in hand, acting as though the planes might fall out of the sky without access the single market. The lies they told…

Airbus have always been more than willing to rant about Brexit, even when they aren’t being prodded by the Government. Surely their enthusiasm for relentless remoaning at politically convenient moments can’t be anything to do with the astonishing sum of €64,172,543 Airbus have received from the EU in just the last five years. Almost €13 million of taxpayers money was funnelled their way last year alone. No wonder they like the EU so much…

Airbus’s Senior UK Vice President Katherine Bennett let slip a key nugget of information live on Sky News this afternoon as part of their anti-No Deal media blitz. When challenged over whether “the government put you up to this,” after initially deflecting the question, Bennett confirmed that the Government had indeed asked them to up the ante on Project Fear:

“They did say could you make sure that you make clear the potential impact of a No Deal, and we are happy to do that because No Deal is potentially going to be catastrophic for us.”

Well, that settles that then…

UPDATE: Bennett’s comments in full:

The PR behind Airbus’s anti-Brexit intervention this week has longstanding links to the LibDems. Katherine Bennett worked for LibDem peer Tom McNally during the 1990s:

“I learnt such a lot from him, especially about speech writing, but also working for MPs and doing briefings.”

She shared a platform with former LibDem MEP Graham Watson art a pro-EU public meeting promoted by the party in 2013:

She is a colleague of Mike Collins, Publicly Manager for Airbus, who has also served as a Gloucestershire County Councillor and Tewkesbury Borough Councillor for… the Lib Dems. With a press office like this…

Remainers and The Times are loving the “Airbus prepares to move business from Britain” story this morning. Couple of things here. The Times claims in its top line:

“The European aerospace company Airbus is set to become the first big manufacturer to pull investment from Britain after losing patience with Theresa May’s stalled Brexit negotiations.”

“Set to” is doing a lot of heavy lifting. Read down and you see Airbus is only threatening to “pull investment” if there is no deal. Incidentally, The Times calls no deal “hard Brexit” – Guido remembers when they used to say “hard Brexit” was leaving the single market and customs union. When you think that privately Number 10 does not countenance the possibility of no deal, that the government has done next to no preparations for such an outcome, and that the PM’s “no deal is better than a bad deal” rhetoric is empty, it is clearly far more likely there will be a deal. So Airbus is not “set to” pull out by any objective measure.

Also worth remembering Airbus was a chief player in Project Fear during the referendum. They made intervention after intervention threatening to pull investment if the country voted to Leave. Since then, Airbus boss Tom Enders admitted that the company plans to retain its operations “long into the future’’. It’s pretty obvious that Airbus and the overwritten story in the Times are just trying to make sure no deal is well and truly off the table. Which it effectively already is thanks to Number 10. This is Project Fear 2.0 from big business and a Remoan comic…

Just days before the referendum StrongerIn played their trump card. Airbus and Siemens publicly warned of the risk that they would leave Britain, if Britain left the EU. It was one of the most credible arguments of Project Fear from CEOs of respected giant industrial firms. Siemens, the bluechip German engineering giant, could go home. Airbus in particular, the champion and political symbol of multi-national cooperation, would probably come under pressure to re-trench. Britain’s multi-billion aerospace industry and engineering base would be at risk.

What actually happened? Siemens’ CEO Joe Kaeser soon announced after the vote he was “confident and optimistic” about the “big opportunities” in Brexit Britain:

“There is no reason not to invest tomorrow, if there is a demand and a commitment from the customer. I am willing – and the company is willing to invest – further. There are more opportunities than risks for us.”

Yesterday brought the icing on the cake, Bloomberg revealed that the Airbus Chief Executive Officer Tom Enders has written to the Business Secretary Greg Clark promising the U.K. government that Airbus plans to retain its British operations “long into the future’’ – this from the most europhile of CEOs. Project Fear’s strongest cards turned out to be bluffs.

The same people who bluffed before now say if Brexit happens it will be a disaster for the economy. Ignore what they say and instead follow the money. Investment banks like Bank of America and Goldman Sachs are spending billions on new headquarters in London, europhile Bloomberg too. The Brexodus of big business is not happening, instead they are investing billions for the long term. Brexit is going to be great…