Sunday, December 22, 2019

Cobham sale is deeply concerning


Responding to news that the government has now approved the sale of UK defence and aerospace company Cobham to a US private equity firm, Ed Davey MP, Acting Leader of the Liberal Democrats, said:

"It is deeply concerning that the Conservative government is allowing this sale to go ahead, despite previously cited concerns that it could undermine our national security. While Andrea Leadsom claims these concerns have been 'mitigated', we have yet to see evidence of this. 

"If Boris Johnson's government are happy to sell off a leading UK defence and aerospace company to Trump's America, how can we expect his government to protect our defence and manufacturing sectors, not to mention every other sector of our economy, as they negotiate trade deals after Brexit?"

1 comment:

Laurence Cox said...

It just continues the history of us selling off our defence companies to foreigners (not only Americans). For example Thales, the French-based multinational, owns defence company sites at: Belfast, Bristol, Crawley, Glasgow, Reading, Stockport and Templecombe

https://www.thalesgroup.com/en/countries/europe/united-kingdom/about-thales-uk/our-uk-locations

Leonardo, the Italian-based multinational has sites at:
Basildon, Bristol, Edinburgh, Farnham, Lincoln, Luton, Southampton and Yeovil

https://www.uk.leonardocompany.com/en/about-us/uk-profile

The British Government sold the pass a long time ago when it came to foreign ownership of defence companies.