I am proud of the fact that the UK is an open trading country. I welcome inward investment such as that of Nissan, and the takeover of struggling British companies by foreign companies who turn them around, as in the case of Jaguar Land Rover. I also accept that job losses sometimes have to occur to restore failing companies to health.
But I am not in favour of the takeover of excellent and strategically important British companies by struggling foreign firms whose actions are fuelled by tax avoidance, and who want to asset-strip the intellectual property of the British company and then dismember it. I also don't find it difficult to make a distinction between these two types of situation, and I don't think companies who want to do business in the UK will find it a difficult distinction to make either.
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