We have sparred on this before
@GaryH, so let's not cover old ground.
That said, what I find mega curious about the above is that Brexit was sold in part to be the opposite of what you are describing. Pre-Brexit we were doing a whopping amount of trade with our closest neighbours because that made sense due to the simplicity of trading in the single market and also logistically because most of the transport could be done by road (with an on tap haulage labour source) rather than by air or sea.
Post Brexit, the promise is that instead of drinking French wine we can ship it from Australia, who needs lamb from Wales when you can bring it from New South Wales ... makes no sense to me, but that's the darling argument of the Brexiteers.
Mining more coal anywhere seems like a bad idea to me, whether it be in Wales or anywhere else.
If you have someone in Pakistan earning £1 a day and you want that work done in the UK by someone earning £9 an hour (+ pension, + Employer NI, + much else) then you won't be paying 'a bit' more, it's a huge change. Furthermore, if you make that stuff here, you wouldn't be able to export it anywhere, because other countries would simply still buy from Pakistan.
To clarify, I am not beating the drum for someone in Pakistan to be earning £1 a day, merely making it clear that what you portray as simple is not simple.
It is telling that the device that you used to outline the above was almost certainly assembled out east, even if designed in the west.
How much would an iPhone cost if Apple were forced to make it in America?
In the $30,000 to $100,000 range… and no this is not a typo.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/...t-if-apple-were-forced-to-make-it-in-america/
If you want the above, you need a revolution in this country to change everyone's outlook on spend and a complete change in the way global finance and commerce works. You've got to convince the folk that spend £8 billion at Primark every year that it's not a good idea.
Before Brexit and the pandemic we had low unemployment in this country, we used EU labour to supplement that of our own population. I dare say a lot of British people don't want to be living in the backend of Lincolnshire, doing 12 hour days in the fields, it's not in my life plan, is it in yours?
I have yet to meet a Brit who wants to do any of these jobs, they always want their fellow countrymen to do them instead of someone born in another country, for reasons they don't articulate very well.
