LORD Mandelson has issued a stark warning that a vote to leave the European Union would harm the North-East’s ability to attract foreign investment and damage the regional economy.

The former European Commissioner for Trade returned to the region ahead of the historic referendum over Britain’s future as part of the single market today.

He said a vote to remain would safeguard attractive business opportunities for foreign companies to invest in the manufacturing sector.

The Northern Echo: Peter Mandelson addressing staff at Dyer Engineering, Harelaw, near Stanley, County Durham. Picture by Gavin Havery

The 62-year-old said: “The significance of this referendum is that it is about our economic future and how we are going to keep our economy safe and how we are going to attract new manufacturing investment in the future and how companies are going to thrive.”

He also warned there was no turning back if the public did decide on a so-called ‘Brexit’.

“If we vote to leave that would be it. The Government will have to act. It will take us two years to negotiate a divorce settlement and once we are on that conveyor belt there will be no jumping off it.

“When it comes to negotiating a different sort of relationship with our European partners that will take many years more post the divorce.

“What people have to realise is that we would be leaving a club, which has its own rules, which has own membership subscription and it expects all of its members to play by those rules and use the facilities of that club on an even keel.

“They are not going to put a sign up saying: ‘Sorry you are leaving Britain, come and go as you please’.

“In the real world we get a lot out of the relationship with Europe, but we only get that because we are members of the club. They are not naïve and we should not be mugs.”

During his visit, Lord Mandelson addressed 400 guests at the North East Process Industry Cluster conference at Wynyard Hall Hotel about why the Teesside chemical industry should back the Remain campaign before meeting Newcastle Central MP Chi Onwurah and Newcastle City Council leader Nick Forbes on the Quayside.

He said: “My message to the people of the North-East is that the European Union has enabled us to create lasting peace on our continent.

“It has enabled us to work together to build massive prosperity that we all enjoy.

“It also gives us power in the rest of the world by joining forces and combining our strengths and that is what I want to see continue.”

Lord Mandelson, one of the architects of New Labour, who was Hartlepool MP from 1992-2004, also spoke to staff at Dyer Engineering, at Harelaw, Stanley, which exports to Europe and supplies Newton Aycliffe’s Hitachi Rail Europe and had a tour of the factory.

He said: “Look at Hitachi and the other major manufacturing companies we can bring to the North-East, not just because we are so good in this region and Britain is a good place to do business, but because Britain is part of the European Union and the single market and those companies to locate her must had continued free access to the single market.

The Northern Echo: Peter Mandelson at Dyer Engineering, Harelaw, near Stanley, County Durham. Picture by Gavin Havery

“If they don’t have that as a result of us leaving the EU then the investment case for locating in the North-East of England will completely change and we will be the losers.”