Tuesday 02 April 2019 3:48 pm | Updated: Monday 03 June 2019 12:38 am

Ford’s British operations hang in the balance as no-deal Brexit looms large

Ford has delivered the latest warning for the UK car industry after Brexit, saying it has yet to decide on its longer-term plans in Britain.

The second-biggest US car maker said this morning it was already spending tens of millions of euros preparing for a possible no-deal scenario, in which case it would have to take a “long, hard look” at its British operations.

“If we were to get to a no-deal Brexit … then we would have to take another long, hard look at the operations that we have in the UK,” Ford’s Europe chairman Steven Armstrong told Sky News.

Ford supports 5,580 manufacturing jobs at three plants in the UK, where it manufacturers engines and transmissions for its cars made elsewhere. This includes 3,000 workers at a plant in Dagenham.

Last month, it said it would have to cut at least 5,000 out of its 24,000 employees in Germany, as well as an undetermined number in Britain, as part of a turnaround plan for its European operations.

Speaking separately at an event in the Netherlands today, Armstrong added: “We love being in Britain, but it has to be competitive and if it’s not competitive then we’ll have to take whatever actions we’ll need to take to protect the business.”

The firm has already warned it could face $1bn (£770m) in tariff costs if the UK crashes out of the EU without a deal.

Britain’s departure from the EU has already been pushed back from 29 March until at least 12 April, and this is likely to be extended even further in the coming fortnight.