'Export' is an easy thing for politicians to aspire to in throwaway sound bites but the practicality is another matter. Building something which can be sold cheaply enough to be competitive is likely to entail compromising on our own requirements due to our disadvantages of scale (low) and labour cost (high), while developing separate export variants adds cost and (if disclosed) introduces an awkward 'second-class customer' consideration which needs a certain amount of un-British arrogance to brazen out. If we tried to sell properly cutting-edge kit, you can bet your life that the US would manage to 'acquire' a supplier of vital washers and screws and slap on ITAR restrictions to protect its own interests. That's assuming we could even get close to ITAR-freedom without losing the US interoperability which is so central to our own operating concepts, especially in the air. And that's before we get to domestic and international partner opposition to exports to certain countries... countries upon which our industries have come to rely. I am bemused by the Swedish angle to Tempest: what chance of them associating themselves with exports to KSA? Finally our 'baggage' - of Empire and now in Europe, too - doesn't help; we're not always easy for foreign governments to associate themselves with.
Better IMHO to accept that maintaining a domestic industry comes at eye-watering cost. Build what you need, otherwise what is the point, beyond being an inefficient alternative to cash handouts to workers? Treat any exports as a bonus. Basing industrial strategy on them will lead to disappointment. That £34bn would probably look a lot less attractive if spread over the appropriate time period and offset against associated costs, tangible and otherwise.
Last edited by Easy Street; 6th Sep 2020 at 10:00.