Here is just another example of what happens when British industry is sold off to foreign buyers. The owners understandably put the needs of their fellow-countrymen first. If you’re a French company and sales are slumping, global financial crisis and Browns mismanagement of the British economy, jobs need to be cut, you don’t start laying off workers in Paris. You lay them off in Dagenham.

May & Baker used to be a British chemical company. Started by John May and William Baker in Wandsworth, London in 1851, it moved to Dagenham, Essex in 1934. Although the company first became French-owned in 1922 bought by Etablissement Poulenc-Frères the company sought not to compromise the integrity of the firm nor the national interests of Britain. They even kept the name May & Baker for another 65 years and the local workforce ensured that the company’s prosperity grew.

However, in 1999 the company merged with Germany firm Hoechst and changed its name to Aventis. In 2000 the company’s Research & Development Department was moved out, the first sign that the future of the Rainham Road South site was in doubt. In 2004 Aventis merged with French firm Sanofi-Synthélabo and the new employer was a company called Sanofi-Aventis. Now the workforce has been told that manufacturing at the plant will be phased out and around 500 staff will be made redundant because operations are being transferred to France. Employees will be offered the chance to relocate and continue working for Sanofi-Aventis at another site overseas!

This is a familiar story around Britain. British industry should be brought back under British ownership and protecting existing manufacturing jobs and investing in a new manufacturing base should be a priority if we are ever to get this country back on its feet.

Pity the poor workers from Dagenham and the bad news they have to break to their families. Just more victims of the LibLabCon trick and McBroon.

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