Jaguar Land Rover in Halewood and Airbus in Deeside employ more than 10,000 people between them and both fear the impact of a no-deal Brexit on March 29. Tony McDonough reports

A no-deal Brexit cast an ominous over two of Liverpool city region’s biggest employers on Thursday with Airbus warning of possible dire consequences of a no-deal scenario and Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) announcing a extra shutdown.

Planemaker Airbus employs more than 6,000 people at its giant wing-making plant at Deeside, many of them living in Merseyside. Chief executive Tom Enders said a no-deal Brexit could see the company depart the UK.

He said Airbus “will have to make potentially very harmful decisions for the UK” in the event of no deal on March 29, adding it was a “disgrace” that firms could still not plan for Brexit.

And JLR, which employs more than 4,000 people assembling the Evoque and Discovery Sport at Halewood said there would be a shutdown at all its UK plants in April due to possible disruption caused by Brexit.

Last year chief executive Ralf Speth told a automotive conference in Birmingham that a hard Brexit could cost it £60m a day in lost revenue and lead to the loss of thousands of jobs across the automotive sector.

In a statement JLR said: “There will be an additional week of production stand-down (from the) April 8 to 12 due to potential Brexit disruption.”

Earlier this month JLR said it planned to reduce its global workforce by 4,500 and will start with a voluntary redundancy programme in its UK operations. These would be in addition to 1,500 people who left the business in 2018.

However, just before Christmas it was reported that Natarajan Chandrasekaran, chairman of JLR’s Indian parent company Tata, had written to Prime Minister Theresa May saying the company was committed to the long-term future of its UK operations.