People may not like it, but by buying British, a lot of the taxpayers money goes back in to the British economy. Yes the Government paid £3.5+ billion for MRA4 but a large amount of that came directly back to them via tax both on company profits and individual employees. The money that didn’t come back by tax filtered down to suppliers who paid their employees etc, etc. All of the employees then spent their pay in the local economy etc etc etc.
If the government always just bought American kit the British economy would see absolutely nothing, all £3.5+ billion would leave the country and the American public would benefit from it.
Its always too easy just to look at the small picture.
A lot of people are too quick to knock British industry and then moan that there’s no jobs left in the UK unless you want to work for a supermarket.
The whole of the Aircraft industry world wide are struggling with delivering products, i.e Airbus with A380 and A400M, Boeing with 787 and 747 replacement, Lockheed with JSF. As the aircraft become more technical and the pool of experienced aerospace engineers decline (it is always hard for projects to man up with the required personnel) this problem is always going to exist.
America can always have the best kit as they throw a lot of many at it and can always justify it by buying in large multiples. But at the end of the day they still come to the UK for certain parts because we are still the world leaders in many fields.