Nissan's future in Sunderland will be in doubt if Theresa May's negotiation skills are anything like her dance moves

Prime Minister Theresa May dances as she arrives on stage to make her speech at the Conservative Party annual conference at the International Convention Centre, Birmingham

As uncomfortable to watch as Theresa May's dance moves may be, it's what she sorts at the negotiating table that really counts.

It matters not a jot to the people of Sunderland if she can move smoothly to the beat of an ABBA hit (she can’t, by the way), what concerns them is whether she’s in step with people calling the tune.

And in the North East, it’s people like Nissan that we need to keep happy or, if the worst-case scenario is realised, they will leave.

Nissan warns of hard Brexit risk to Sunderland plant

Nissan has made it clear for years that it prefers to do business in Europe’s frictionless trade environment. It employs nigh on 8,000 people, with tens of thousands more in the supply chain, so what it says matters to the stability of the Wearside economy.

Nissan says a ‘no-deal’ Brexit would harm its business. It is couched in careful terms, calling for UK and EU negotiators to work towards an ‘orderly balanced Brexit,’ but the killer line comes in fears expressed that a ‘sudden change’ could have ‘serious implications’ for its business. As much as we’d like to think Nissan has huge loyalty to our region, in truth, it probably has a greater loyalty to itself and the profits it can make.

At the EU negotiation table it does, of course, take two to tango for a satisfactory Brexit.

In that case, we can only hope that the PM talks a better game than her dance moves suggest.