Honest John
Full Member
I think it would be doomed to fail - whilst we might have amazing engineering production we are totally dependent on foreign imports for key components and raw materials, so we are easy to kill off if a competitor can also do it.
Sadly the UK has only gone down the route of High -end Manufacturing and engineering in a few key areas such as Aerospace and Vehicle components / parts. Other Countries such as Denmark went down the specialisation route years ago and have protected their manufacturing industry accordingly.
I wouldn't trust Corbyn to manage a village fate and his Momentum colleagues would have the vicar and half of the parishioners thrown out and replaced with apparatchiks from Hoxton and Camden inside a week. I wouldn't hold my breath on Corbyn being any better than the current bunch of incompetents.
Don't forget that this manufacturing activity drives a massive part of the service economy.
Manufacturing accounts for about 12% of GDP, in 1968 it accounted for 38%. However, if you take the monetary value of the 12% and compare it to the 38% - even allowing for inflation - the 12% is worth about 3 times the 38%. Why? because we haven't got vast swathes of factories making penny-a-bucket nuts, bolts and washers. That has all gone to low-cost countries.
High end manufacturing is valuable and should be looked after.