Also, they bought a fab, and by extension a bunch of knowledgeable employees who can work it and are eligible for UK security clearances. Once the knowledge of

Also, they bought a fab, and by extension a bunch of knowledgeable employees who can work it and are eligible for UK security clearances. Once the knowledge of the workers is gone then it would be really hard to spin something up in country, and being the UK we would likely be forced to buy stuff from the US (or go to the far east anyway). If you built a fab in country then you would probably have to get staff from an existing fab to help run it and iron out any issues and gradually switch them out for local staff.