A Reform government would allow coal mines to reopen in Wales to revive British steel-making, Nigel Farage will say today.

In a major speech, the Reform leader will put coal-mining at the centre of the party’s plans for reopening the Port Talbot Steelworks if it wins Welsh elections next year.

He will accuse Labour of having ‘betrayed Wales’s great heritage’ after the plant, once one of the world’s largest, closed its last blast furnace last October.

It was a huge blow to the south Wales town, with at least 2,500 skilled, well-paid jobs being lost.

The owner, Tata, plans to build an electric-arc furnace, which is said to be greener.

But some fear the electric furnaces, which may be in use by the end of 2027, won’t open thanks to their sky-high energy bills.

Mr Farage will say that mining coking coal from nearby pits would allow the old blast furnaces to reopen, because burning it to power them would be a cheaper way of kick-starting steel production.

Before its closure, Port Talbot was importing coal from as far afield as Australia. Mr Farage will argue that Labour has been too obsessed with hitting its Net Zero targets and it should have looked into this option to prevent the steelworks closing.

A Reform government would allow coal mines to reopen in Wales to revive British steel-making, Nigel Farage (above) will say today

A Reform government would allow coal mines to reopen in Wales to revive British steel-making, Nigel Farage (above) will say today

In a major speech, the Reform leader will put coal-mining at the centre of the party's plans for reopening the Port Talbot Steelworks (above) if it wins Welsh elections next year

In a major speech, the Reform leader will put coal-mining at the centre of the party’s plans for reopening the Port Talbot Steelworks (above) if it wins Welsh elections next year

Pictured: Cast House operator Martin Rees changes the nozzle on a clay gun in Blast Furnace number four in the south Wales steelworks on 15 August, 2023

Pictured: Cast House operator Martin Rees changes the nozzle on a clay gun in Blast Furnace number four in the south Wales steelworks on 15 August, 2023

He will stress, however, that mines would only be reopened to get the steelworks going again.

Reform party sources also said the plan to reopen the steelworks was a ‘long-term’ one, saying: ‘We know it won’t be quick nor easy.’

It will be seen as Reform’s latest attempt to park its tanks on Labour’s lawn in its traditional working-class heartlands. 

Wales once had 620 mines employing 232,000 people and produced 57million tons of coal a year when the industry was at its height. Its last deep mine closed in 2008.

Mr Farage told the Mail: ‘Reform and I are serious about reindustrialisation.

‘Our long-term aim is to hopefully reopen Port Talbot steelworks – and instead of importing coal for it, use our own.

‘Wales is one of our next big electoral challenges and we aim to win.’ Labour has controlled the Senedd, Wales’s parliament, since it was created in 1999. But Reform believes it can topple the party’s stranglehold at the elections next May.

He will accuse Labour of having 'betrayed Wales's great heritage' after the plant (above), once one of the world's largest, closed its last blast furnace last October

He will accuse Labour of having ‘betrayed Wales’s great heritage’ after the plant (above), once one of the world’s largest, closed its last blast furnace last October

In a YouGov poll last month, Mr Farage’s party came second with 25 per cent behind Plaid Cymru on 30 per cent. Labour was third with 18 per cent, less than half the 39 per cent it won in 2021.

In his speech in Port Talbot, he is expected to add: ‘Wales is a proud country. Wales has been failed for 26 years. Labour have betrayed Wales’s great heritage.’

He will say that for years Welsh Labour blamed all the country’s issues on the Tories in Westminster, but that they now have no excuse after a year of ‘failure’ under Sir Keir Starmer.

However, critics are likely to point out that the steelworks was a major source of pollution, accounting for around a fifth of Wales’s carbon emissions.

Mr Farage’s speech comes after Reform won 26 per cent of the vote in last week’s Scottish parliament by-election in Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse. Pollster Professor Sir John Curtice said it now posed a serious threat to Labour elsewhere in the UK.

The Department for Business and Trade did not respond to a request to comment last night.

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Reopen the pits! Revealed, Nigel Farage’s big idea to help save the steel industry in Wales…dig for coal in nearby valleys