Fears of ‘catastrophic’ Airbus exit from Portsmouth grow after CEO slams Brexit ‘disgrace’

Councillor Gerald Vernon-Jackson has reinstated his fears for the city amid amplified concerns the aerospace giant could leave the UK in the event of a no-deal Brexit. 

Around 1,000 people are employed at Airbus Defence and Space at Anchorage Park in Hilsea, building world-leading satellite payloads and instruments. 

But if a no-deal occurs, Airbus CEO Tom Enders in a video message today, his firm could be forced to make ‘potentially very harmful decisions' about its UK operations – including redirecting future investment away from the nation.  

He added Brexiteers’ assertions that Airbus ‘will always be here’ were ‘wrong’. 

Cllr Vernon-Jackson said: ‘If what [Airbus] are saying includes the satellite business, that’s extremely serious.

‘With Knight and Lee there are 127 jobs affected – they should be redeployed. But with Airbus, there’s 1,400 – which you can’t redeploy because they are very high-end engineering jobs.

‘If Airbus did choose to say they could no longer work in the UK it would be catastrophic for the city.’ 

In his message today Mr Enders branded the government’s negotiations to leave the EU so far a ‘disgrace’ – claiming firms like Airbus ‘still have no idea what is really going on’. 

The stark words have been welcomed by Stephen Morgan, Labour MP for Portsmouth South, who hopes they will ‘hit home the importance of ruling out a no-deal'. 

He said: ‘When I visited [Airbus] with the shadow Brexit Secretary, we saw the valuable work they do and the employment opportunities they offer – we cannot jeopardise this.’ 

Across the UK Airbus employs more than 14,000 people, with about 110,000 more jobs connected in supply chains. 

It revealed in November ‘about 30’ staff at its Hilsea site left the company after an announcement its Galileo satellite contract would move to the EU after Brexit. 

However, it said on the same day skilled workers in Portsmouth would play a role in a significant satellite-building contract for Eutelsat Communications.