Even-though, after-Brexit UK won't be part of the EU. A UK factory will export cars to the EU with mandatory customs fee and taxes. If your cars have to clear customs anyway why not build them in Ukraine?
In the end, only Jaguar-LandRover (arguably the more "British" manufacturer) seems to have partially managed to pull that off with a 500m loan; everyone else (even Nissan, who supposedly got some guarantees in writing from the previous administration) decided it's not worth the trouble and is in the process of slowly divesting.
Put another way, nobody blamed joining the EU for the demise of way more manufacturing and indeed the coal industry. Yet that is what happened. Cheaper EU coal imports, then eventual erosion of manufacturing bit by bit. But that gets overlooked oddly enough.
Still the UK shifted from manufacturing to services, albeit many EU trade deals and indeed their own members, kinda fall foul in how they handle services with the EU actually looking at punishing members for not opening up their services market.
But in fairness, whilst the EU is not perfect - nothing is perfect.
The US never voted to leave the EU; they were never part of the EU, and openly fought against the French in the 7 Years War. The US voted to leave the British Empire -- and fought a war for it (with some French help later, of course).
Nearest I can tell Brexit is a confluence of UK Conservatives and foreign interests spreading Agi-Prop to A) enrich themselves at the expense of the UK as a whole, B) to split the UK from the EU in a geo-political sense, and C) to, in all likelihood, crush the UK economy.
> Put another way, nobody blamed joining the EU for the demise of way more manufacturing and indeed the coal industry. Yet that is what happened. Cheaper EU coal imports, then eventual erosion of manufacturing bit by bit. But that gets overlooked oddly enough.
Coal was on the way out regardless of European integration. The US was never in the EU and coal still vanished; Donald Trump pandering to the coal industry is not and will not bring it back. Likewise, staying out of the EU would have been, at best, a temporary stay of execution for the UK coal industry.