Britons Protest Planned Split of Rover Group

Thousands of people filled the streets of this city in central England on Saturday to protest German auto giant BMW’s decision to break up its loss-making Rover Group Ltd.

The rally, part of a public campaign to save the 8,000 jobs at Rover’s main Longbridge plant here, drew a crowd of about 40,000.

Union leaders and lawmakers began gathering early, while crowds of supporters filled the sidewalks. They waved banners and placards reading “Betrayed,” “No Surrender” and “Save Rover. Save Us.”

BMW announced its plan in March to sell Rover to a group of British venture capitalists, Alchemy. The group has no experience building cars and has acknowledged that job losses are inevitable as the plant becomes a niche producer of sports cars under the name MG Car Co. Ambitiously, Alchemy hopes to post a profit within three years and sell the company within seven years.

Union leaders fear that Rover will be allowed to die and that thousands of jobs will go. They have been trying desperately to find another buyer for the car group, which lost $3.2 million a day last year, but there has been little interest.

“The job losses that will result from the breakup of Rover are a catastrophe for the whole British economy,” said Roger Lyons, general secretary of the Manufacturing Science and Finance union.

“The message we are sending back to BMW is that their conduct will not be tolerated by the British people,” union negotiator Duncan Simpson said.

As part of the breakup, BMW will sell the popular Land-Rover brand of all-terrain vehicles to Dearborn, Mich.-based Ford Motor Co. for $2.8 billion.