A hole below the waterline for Remain.

You may remember back at the start of 2015 a cargo ship called Hoegh Osaka ran aground in the Solent. 

It was big news partly because of its cargo.  A single Rolls-Royce Wraith, estimated to be worth about £260,000, was on board, part of a precious cargo that included more than 1,000 Jaguars and Land Rovers, 65 Minis, all destined for Middle Eastern customers.  

JCBs on way to buyers around the world on the Hoegh Osaka.

The ship was also carrying a consignment of more than 100 JCB excavators.

In other words, the ship was full of the pride of UK goods and they were being exported.  Interestingly mostly of the cargo was destined to areas out side of the EU.

And it is the JCBs that come to prominence today with JCB chairman Lord Anthony Bamford telling his 6,000 highly skilled and well paid employees they have “very little to fear” over Britain leaving the EU.

Without a doubt it is aimed squarely at the scaremongering of the people like the prime minister and George Osborne who have little experience in the productive part of the economy.

Lord Bamford said in a letter to his workforce he was confident the UK could “stand on its own two feet” outside the bloc.

So in this cascade of claim and counter claim from each side about will jobs be lost or not, perhaps listening to one of the most successful exporters of our time would be a sensible thing to do.

All the more interesting coming the day after the chief economic adviser at the insurer Allianz, Mohamed El-Erian, claimed Britain leaving the EU could help solve some “fundamental divisions”.