It is telling that, when a pivotal moment such as Honda closing its plant in Swindon is announced, commentators leap to argue it confirms their prior beliefs. Remain supporters are convinced that, following other job losses announced in manufacturing and particularly cars over the past few months, the impact of Brexit cutting off the UK from the EU market is to blame.
Leave supporters point instead to longer-term structural factors in the car industry, including the shift from diesel to petrol and particularly to electric. Fans of Brexit can also note the effect of the recently signed EU-Japan trade deal. By gradually reducing to nil the tariffs for Japanese exporters selling autos into the EU, the deal encourages the reshoring of Europe-based production back home. In its public comments on the closure, Honda itself pointed at factors other than Brexit, though the desire not to provoke a public confrontation with the UK government may well have been a motive.
The non-Brexit factors undoubtedly have some basis in reality. Some of them are the natural effect of technological change, however, and others the collateral damage from otherwise beneficial policies. The EU-Japan deal, for example, undoubtedly helps European consumers and businesses overall, and the UK enthusiastically supported it during its negotiation. The difficulty is that Brexit is a self-inflicted wound which promises to bring no offsetting benefit to the UK economy whatsoever.