Would it not be cheaper all round to buy from Boeing. That's £20mil a copy and then pay AW UK £10mil a copy to do nothing but go away. £10mil a copy saving! And a capability that is interoperable with the US, bargain.
I made that exact same point to some senior managers at a defence company up near Blackpool - they were giving me the sob story over a probable loss of 2,000 jobs at the same time as we had to lose 5,000 to make their future expensive equipment 'affordable'. I said that it woukd be cheaper to pay all their workers £100k and buy off the shelf to keep our 5,000 personnel. I wasn't invited back after that!
LJ