Unions

Highest rate since 2008 is not a return to being the engine room of the industrialised world. Anyway manufacturing is starting to come back to the UK (and the rest of the big western countries) because the pound/dollar/euro have been devaluing against emerging market currencies since they started printing money, plus wages have been increasing massively in China while real wages have been decreasing in the western world. These are positive market forces in play making the country more competitive - negative forces would include making the labour base more expensive and less flexible.