Sunderland, a city near the prosperous northern English city of Newcastle, had for many years been the place that won the race to first declare general election results, though its results rarely surprised, it being a firm Labour stronghold.
However, when it came to the June 2016 referendum, the city gained new prominence as it became not only the first city to declare its backing for leaving the EU but to do so by a much greater margin than most had expected.
The 61% vote in favour of leaving the EU (on a turnout of 65%) immediately triggered alarm bells, as the pound fell sharply amid fears that the certainty many had about a comfortable ‘Remain’ win was misplaced.
Since then, Sunderland has come to represent the huge complexities of Brexit, and why there is no simple route ahead for Britain. While the city does have a considerable population of older and low-income voters — two factors that had been identified as being more closely associated with voting to leave — the city is also home to workers at the nearby Sunderland plant of Japanese car maker Nissan, which was completed in 1986.
Nissan’s moves
While ahead of the referendum, Nissan maintained a relatively neutral stance, the role of Britain’s frictionless access to the European continental market has long been known. In fact, according to a 1980 memo to former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, a senior civil servant argued that it was unlikely that Nissan would have given the serious consideration to the plant if Britain was outside the (then) European Community.
Just months after the referendum result, Nissan confirmed that it would indeed build two new car models at the plant, in a move that Brexit supporters swiftly trumpeted as an example of why what they had called “Project Fear” (i.e. the ‘Remain’ campaign highlighting the negative economic and investment consequences of leaving) had got it so wrong.
However, others at the time questioned whether special terms had been offered to the car maker to obtain the significant commitment, forcing a denial from the government. Over the past week, Sunderland has returned to the centre of debate, as Nissan said it would no longer produce the X-Trail model at the plant, but in Japan instead. Yet, Sunderland continues to represent the tensions within British society: while the city’s Labour MPs continue to oppose Theresa May’s ‘Withdrawal Deal’, a local poll earlier this year by the Sunderland Echo pointed to a high level of support for leaving even without a deal.
“Sunderland is representative of a whole slew of places in the U.K., where people had a sense of not having the same prospects as the rest of the U.K.,” says Anand Menon, director of the ‘UK in a Changing Europe’ initiative, which conducts academic research on Brexit up and down the country. He argued that like other parts of the country, Sunderland had pockets of success that masked deep-rooted troubles: higher levels of deprivation, and dissatisfaction that had failed to be acknowledged and tackled by Britain’s political system (Sunderland’s level of unemployment, while below many surrounding areas, remains well above that of the U.K.).
Sunderland highlights how, in the referendum and the Brexit debate, there have been two additional strands that have played a crucial and long-running part — dissatisfaction with the unresponsiveness of the existing political system and what was seen as a failing economy (particularly in the wake of the 2007 crash), argued Mr. Menon. “Brexit didn’t create either of those factors.”
(Vidya Ram works for The Hindu and is based in London.)
