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If the sun goes on scunthorpe this Saturday, the town’s steelworks are likely to have a new boss – Jonathan Reynolds.
The law that Parliament will do Almost certainly approved the weekend Quote the Business Secretary the powers to direct staff at British Steel, order raw materials and keep the ovens of the pit of crucial interest at the factory.
It is not full nationalization.
But it is an extraordinary step.
Chinese firm Jingye will remain the owner of British Steel on paper.
But the British state will insert itself into the corporate setup to legally ignore the wishes of the multinational company.
A form of martial law is called up and applied to private enterprise.
It will cost the taxpayer.
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No number is specified, but there are wages to pay and orders to make on a site that is estimated to lose £ 700,000 a day.
There is also clear frustration in government at How the Chinese owners negotiated Around the modernization of the Scunthorpe website.
“Jingye was not throughout the process,” said the business secretary in the official announcement of his department about the new laws.
The time is so closely because of the nature of the steel -making process.
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Within the UK’s last ovens
Once turned off, the ovens are very difficult to turn on again.
If it happened in Scunthorpe – as probably seemed within a few days – it would have been.
This move keeps the show on the road and opens more time to conversations about the long-term future of the plant.
While the official line in Whitehall is that “all options are on the table”, nationalization looks increasingly likely.
It would need more legislation if done – as likely – without the approval of the current owner.
It has not yet been excluded from finding an alternative commercial partner, but one is not waiting in the wings.
What the long-term future looks like, with just five years of life in the Scunthorpe ovens, modernization is inevitable.
The planting of Port Talbot closed its ovens Last year amid a switch to the more environmentally friendly electrical arc furnace and a loss of thousands of jobs.
A general view shows British Steel’s Scunthorpe plant. Pic Reuters
Political figures in Wales are now questioning why nationalization was not on the table for this site.
The response from the government is that the agreement was done by the previous Tory administration and that the owners of the South Wales site agreed to the conditions.
But there is also a feeling that this decision on British steel is formed by the domestic and international political context.
Labor came to power to promise to revive the left-back communities and spray a sense of pride to places that still come from the loss of the traditional industry.
With that in mind, it would be politically unbearable to see that the UK’s last two ovens were closed and lost thousands of jobs in a relatively deprived part of the country.
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One of the two ovens at British Steel’s scunthorpe operation
Reformation UK’s The position to push to full and immediate nationalization is also relevant, as the party is in many parts of the country in the election, where the decline in manufacturing felt best.
The geo-political situation is perhaps more urgent.
Just look at the strength of the prime minister’s language in his downing street address – “Our economic and national security is all on the right path”.
The government’s response to the unrest caused by President Donald Trump’s statements about tariffs and safety was to emphasize the need to increase domestic resilience in both cases and defense.
It becomes the only G7 nation that cannot produce Virgin stealing at a time when globalization seems to be in retreat, hardly at the narrative.
It would also provide serious practical questions about the ability of the UK to produce steel for defense and the broader switch to green energy production.
Then there is the interesting subplot around the US China trade.
Although this decision is separate from discussions with the White House on rates, one can imagine how a UK moves to control a national interest of his Chinese owner, with a US president currently working on a fierce trade war with Beijing.
It is a remarkable step of the government, but it is more a punctuation than a complete answer.
The tension between manufacturing and unbundling remains, just like the challenges presented by a global economy, which are considerable.
But one thing is certain.
As a political parable about the decline of the traditional industry and the dangers of globalization, the saga of British steel is difficult to beat.
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