Black Country will still be a manufacturing 'world beater' after Brexit says David Davis.
A Conservative Government will get 'the right deal' with Europe to grow the Black Country's 'world beating' manufacturing industry after we leave the EU, the Brexit Secretary has said.
David Davis said he also believed the election of French President Emmanuel Macron would make withdrawal talks 'easier' for Britain following his victory over far-right and Eurosceptic rival Marine Le Pen.
He made the comments as he visited Thomas Dudley Ltd yesterday with Conservative Dudley North candidate Les Jones as the Tories ramped up its campaigning in the target constituency.
They toured the foundry on Birmingham New Road and met with some of the firm's 400 workers and spoke about Brexit with joint managing director Jason Parker.
Mr Davis told the Express & Star: "Brexit in a way is the foundation of what happens next. If we get, as we intend to, a successful Brexit with a continued good relationship with the European Union and continued access to markets – not membership – which is frictionless with no tariffs and no restrictions, that will underpin the whole economic effort."
He added: "This part of England is the engine of the United Kingdom, it always has been. For virtually most of the industrial revolution it has been the productive part and the machine room of the Empire throughout its history. And today it is the same.
"I have been walking around this very interesting, fabulous factory. When one of the chief executives was at his father's funeral recently, he said this company is about people before profits – about developing skills and investing in people, making things and in the course of making things, building people into skilled personnel.
"That is an incredibly important part of what the Black Country is – it's part of its character and its psyche. What we are aiming to do is to encourage that to allow it to develop and be a world beater like it has been for a century."
Dudley North has been a Labour seat since its creation in 1997 but this time around is a top Conservative target already drawing a visit from the Prime Minister and now Mr Davis.
Ian Austin is looking to retain the seat for Labour and Bill Etheridge is contesting it for UKIP.
