- large factory of British workers + British management: strife, strikes, disaster, bankruptcy (British Leyland)
- small factory of British workers + British management: success, on a small scale (lots of the F1 industry, McLaren etc; also true of non-car manufacturing)
- large factory of British workers with overseas management: success (Nissan Sunderland, BMW era Mini, etc)
Tory governance and fiscal policies had all the responsibility for Leyland, Hillman and more importantly Rover.
For Rover in particular, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_Venture_Holdings stands out. Similar to Maplin and Toys R Us, an example of the owner-management taking a large amount of cash out of a business that was declining.
That factory was fascinating to work in, looking back on it I saw a lot of Deming-compatible stuff going on that I wasn't equipped to recognise at the time. There was strong German representation in factory management, lots of interaction with people coming and going from Munich all the time. But the production line staff had a large agency contingent so it didn't have the "job for life" ethos that the Toyota Way would say is essential.