Happy to be shown it's true if you can give a reference though.
Might only be wikipedia, but it is a cited statement:
Aerospace industry in the United Kingdom - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
First line: "The
aerospace industry of the United Kingdom is the second- or third-largest national aerospace industry in the world, depending upon the method of measurement.
"
We could build our own... Ohh but hang on, because we are buying this overpriced Spamcan we have all but destroyed the UK military industry and dispersed our design teams and skilled folks, so we are now left in the position we are in now.. Forced to buy American.
But doesn't everyone here bitch and moan
endlessly when "British Waste of Space" and "Wastelands" make their own aircraft that are in many ways inferior to other products yet charge the UK Gov over the odds for them? And then those same people cry out that we should have bought the US-built aircraft first because they're much cheaper and more capable.