Leyland Daf: A case of negative European integration

Outline

In February 1987 Daf, the privately owned Dutch truck maker, bought the British state‐owned Leyland trucks and vans business. Almost five years to the day later, Leyland Daf went into liquidation. This report examines what went wrong and tells the story behind the 1987 deal. It will argue that the UK Government sold Leyland trucks to a parent company which had little to offer. This conclusion raises the crucial issues of how the British Government and the EC got us into this position and why both have done little to solve the regional problems they created.