this post was submitted on 12 Apr 2025
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Britain plots state control of a flailing steelmaker. Here’s why. (www.politico.eu)
submitted 2 weeks ago by mc900ftJesus@lemy.lol to c/world@quokk.au
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Lawmakers will on Saturday debate emergency legislation that would give the business secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, the power to keep the S****horpe British Steel site running as the government tries to find a buyer to co-invest in the steelmaker.

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[–] monkeyman69@lemmynsfw.com 6 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

UK government go "brrrrr" to bail out failing, Chinese owned, massively polluting steel co.

Massively failing, hugely polluting UK water companies, pumping shit into our waterways, UK government go "....... Let the market sort it out".

The entire system is fucked.

[–] towerful@programming.dev 2 points 2 weeks ago

I presume "co-invest" means the steel maker becomes partially state owned. Which is only a good thing, or at least a move towards a good thing.
I mean, I'm super happy with both Scottish Water and ScotRail - both (now) state owned companies.

Sounds like it's difficult to make steel these days (financially speaking), and the Chinese owners have kinda run the plant into the ground...

The government has told the company's UK management to keep the site operational, and the emergency law will ensure that any employees who are sacked by the Chinese owners can be reinstated.

This intervention stops short of nationalisation - when a government takes ownership and control of a company - but Sir Keir said the government would do "everything possible" to "protect" the UK's steel industry.

The numbers are interesting for how much the steel is actually worth to UK industry & economics (it's in the article), but it's about 1% of both. And about 0.3% of the world total of steel production.

But in these times, steel is important. And being able to locally/domestically produce good quality stuff is important to economical/military stability.
So, perhaps the monetary value is only 1%, but the intrinsic value of reliable domestic steel production might mean it's worth a lot more.

Perhaps nationalisation with a big renovation to greener steel production is a good investment?
I have no idea, but it's certainly something I would support. Keeps jobs, creates new jobs, reduces carbon of an existing high-carbon industr, and secured domestic steel production.
Seems like a lot of wins.

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