Refusal to offer work in former shipbuilding region? (4)
I believe the answer is:
nope
'refusal' is the definition.
'work in former shipbuilding region?' is the wordplay.
'work' becomes 'op' (abbreviation for opus).
'in' is an insertion indicator.
'former shipbuilding region?' becomes 'ne' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'op' placed inside 'ne' is 'NOPE'.
'to offer' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for nope that I've seen before include "You must be joking" , "I'm afraid not" , "I don't think so!" , "Certainly not" , "not with stress" .)