Interestingly, the Welsh Lib Dem MP doesn't seem particularly happy with the British Steel nationalisation and how it looks for Wales. Even Darren Millar is getting in on it. Plaid has been outspoken from the start of course.

As David Chadwick said:

When crisis hits in Wales, it's tolerated.

When it hits elsewhere, it becomes a national emergency

by Draigwyrdd

13 comments

  1. Double standards! A Plaid government will put Cymru first.

  2. Plaid definitely seem the best choice for someone not voting Labour, but wrong on this. It’s a different situation and people asking why PT wasn’t nationalised when Scunthorpe just has aren’t aware of all the facts.

  3. It wasn’t a labour government at the time and it wasn’t about to be sabotaged by its owners.

  5. It’s not really a double standard IMO, because Scunthorpe appears to be the last place we make virgin steel, which is essential for certain things (such as the military). Had Scunthorpe closed first, I would expect we’d have kept the blast furnaces running in Port Talbot.

    Recycling steel is way better for the environment as well, so fits in with what the Welsh gov are doing anyway. Had Scunthorpe closed first, the Welsh gov would probably have another headache as Port Talbot wouldn’t be allowed to switch to EAF, and we know how environmentally friendly they want to be.

  6. I think some people in this thread seem to have got it wrong. The scunthorpe site is getting saved primarily because of it’s virgin steel making capabilities.

    This isn’t really anything to do with the £500m grant being refused (the one Tata accepted for port talbot). The only difference is scunthorpe is the last site doing virgin steel and Port Talbot was the penultimate.

    The lack of industrial strategy from the government is astounding.

  7. Britain needs a steel works, part of our national security strategy. It makes sense to invest in our own industry, and to make it a world leading producer, but at the same time they should mandate the use of British produced steel in our national building infrastructure. This may mean nationalisation.

  8. TL;DR: There are potentially many good reasons for nationalising Scunthorpe now and not Port Talbot last summer, BUT Labour needs to do a better job of making that case rather than denying responsibility.

    ——-

    I can see a lot of people here saying it was a different situation in Port Talbot, which it definitely was to be fair (a serious commitment from Tata to keep recycled steel making, PT wasn’t the last primary steelmaking plan in the UK, short amount of time after Labour came into office before closure of the last blast furnace, not owned by the Chinese, previous deal to swap to EAF already in motion, expense of nationalisation etc.).

    However, the UK Labour Government absolutely COULD have made the choice to nationalise before the closure of the last blast furnace. It’s just wrong to say it wasn’t possible or was a “pipe dream” which was the Labour line at the time. Not is it right to say “the decision was already taken before we got into office so there was nothing we could do”. There WAS a small window after the 2024 election where nationalisation could have happened.

    Now it may well be that there were (as spelled out above) many good reasons not to nationalise Tata back in last summer, but Labour needs to explain that and justify their decision to voters.

    Just saying “it wasn’t possible” or “the decision wasn’t ours to make” really doesn’t wash (especially in light of the quick turnaround to nationalise British Steel) and I doubt voters in Port Talbot who have lost their jobs will be very impressed by it. This sort of denying responsibility is part of what puts a lot of voters off politics.

  9. It’ll be interesting to see how this pans out with Senedd elections next year. Given that we know that the structure of the elections will result in no Labour majority, does anyone think that they might not even end up being the largest party?

  10. People are trying to make this an England vs Wales thing when in reality if the Scunthorpe offer was accepted by the Chinese owners and the Port Talbot offer was rejected by Tata then it would be Port Talbot now in government control

    The bigger picture is this – For better or worse there is a Net Zero push. Which means electric arc furnaces. In a few years time Port Talbot will have electric arc furnaces. This means steel production will continue there, but with a vastly reduced workforce as electric arc requires much less labour to run. In many ways Port Talbots future is more secure. In Scunthorpe who knows what will happen but its fate is still very much uncertain

    Hopefully in the future it will all be under government control. But this is not an England vs Wales thing and anybody saying it is, is a complete idiot.

  11. Interesting that BBC report this way in Wales. In Scotland they covered this entirely differently and instead just presented the Britnat angle.

  13. The Government is negotiating with private companies, one took the deal and one didn’t. But lets make it really complicated and call it double standards, petty attention seekers lol.

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