Posted on 05/12/2026 6:39:08 PM PDT by MinorityRepublican
The full nationalisation of British Steel is expected to be announced in the king’s speech this week, a year after the government took over the daily running of the loss-making business from its Chinese owner.
The steelmaker, which employs 3,500 people at its plant in Scunthorpe, came under government control last April amid fears that its owner, Jingye, was planning to shut down the site.
British Steel operates the last two remaining blast furnaces in the UK, but its economic control remains with the Chinese company, which bought it out of insolvency in early 2020.
An announcement confirming the plans is expected in the king’s speech on Wednesday, according to the Sunday Times, but details of the speech are still being finalised.
British Steel was bought by the private equity group Greybull Capital in 2016, but it collapsed into insolvency three years later. It was bought by Jingye in March 2020.
The Chinese company had planned initially to build an electric arc furnace at Scunthorpe and another at a site in Teesside, though negotiations with the government ultimately fell through. Jingye then sought to shut down the blast furnaces in April 2025.
Closure of the British Steel plant would have ended Britain’s primary steel-making ability as blast furnaces allow the metal to be made from scratch, rather than relying on scrap.
However, by the end of January this year the cost of keeping British Steel running had risen to £377m, and could exceed £1.5bn by 2028 if it continues at its current rate, according to estimates from the National Audit Office.
The company has attracted interest from potential buyers, with the Miami-based retail investor Michael Flacks having declared himself “very” interested in buying it in February.
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
If the Chinese couldn’t make a go of it I doubt the Government can...........
We’re only making plans for Nigel
He has his future in a British steel
We’re only making plans for Nigel
Nigel’s whole future is as good as sealed, yeah
Some random crew in Brooklyn is bigger than British Steel.
I don’t think Judas Priest is going to be happy about that.
Didn’t Britain try this before, before Margaret Thatcher?
Because it worked so well the first time around?
Oh yeah, that’ll fix it!
sarc/>
CC
Nationalism always works out well for the industry that’s being taken over by the government.
This is a tough one. Home grown steel is necessary for national security. We are suffering now because we let our enemies take our mining, chip, and pharmaceutical industries from us. These are different from consumer electronics or entertainment trinkets. It might be necessary for the UK to prop up the steel industry, NOT because it makes economic sense, but because it is a strategic necessity. In the meantime, figure out why UK steel isn’t competitive, and address that.
Nationalization is nothing but evidence and proof that the losers and has-beens are in charge. The weak and feckless.
Remember Obama nationalised automakers for failing to support his 54.5 MPG mandate (nobody admits that but I’ve uncovered from contributions that was the case).
What we also have here is China. And that’s the target for driving out the CCP. Reminds me of how Argentina seized YPF (oil) from Spanish giant Repsol (the legendary MotoGP sponsor for Honda) for political purposes.
Cleveland-Cliffs or Nippon Steel takeover coming.
Let's hear from the expert:
Perhaps the greatest of these temptations is government’s desire to concentrate economic power in its own hands. It begins to believe that it knows how to manage business. But let me tell you, it doesn’t as we discovered in Britain in the 1970s when nationalisation and prices and incomes policy together deprived management of the ability to manage. And when we came to privatise and deregulate in the 1980s it took some time before these skills returned. A system of state control can’t be made good merely because it is run by “clever” people who make the arrogant assertion that they “know best” and that they are serving the “public interest” interest which of course is determined by them. State control is fundamentally bad because it denies people the power to choose and the opportunity to bear responsibility for their own actions. Conversely, privatisation shrinks the power of the state and free enterprise enlarges the power of the people.
Typical leftist government result. Drive a company/industry to insolvency through taxes, onerous regulation, and nonsensical economic policies. When that happens, said government rushes in to save the day, but winds up making things worse plus laying off all the costs of their ineptitude and fecklessness onto the taxpayers.
“and no one feels like making steel in your own country?”
Using the phrase “feels like” seems a little generous. British Fabians have been worse to their own people than the U.S. progressives have been here, with all of the excess regulations and propaganda.
In the first instant, nobody could make money doing it so why bother. Second, operating a Steel concern would just increase global warming so we can’t double cross the cult. Third, operating a Steel concern is most certainly going to get you a target on your back by that government owned, government run, government paid for, government propaganda outlet The BBC. Who wants to be harassed by the British Broadcasting Company? And fourth, even if you could actually turn a profit the amount of government regulatory harassment for operating such a large operation in the U.K. would be absolutely insane.
And I bet we could come up with other government related reasons too. After decades and decades of this, it makes a home grown steel operation untenable. I know I wouldn’t double cross that climate change cult, and I bet you would not double cross that climate change cult either.
What we are looking at here is peak government and due to peak government, only government can save the day because the field has been decimated. The free market has systemically been picked apart and destroyed. Government created a beat-down-people-crisis that only government can now solve through nationalizing the industry.
Reagan said this back in the sixties:
“And such machinery already exists. The government can find some charge to bring against any concern it chooses to prosecute. Every businessman has his own tale of harassment. Somewhere a perversion has taken place. Our natural, unalienable rights are now considered to be a dispensation of government, and freedom has never been so fragile, so close to slipping from our grasp as it is at this moment.”
And it was always twice as bad in Britain as here, and has remained twice/thrice as bad in Britain as in here in the U.S over the decades since.(except the Thatcher years)
The UK did this to themselves.
The whole British steel situation is exactly what peak government looks like. They have systematically done it too harshly and for too long and unfortunately, created the conditions to where nationalization may and probably is now the only option left.
Agree 100%. Long term, the things you cited have to be addressed. The UK has the same problem we do. Even if you get a Thatcher, a Reagan, or a Trump, your long planned, long to build up heavy industry could be thwarted instantly with the stroke of Obama’s pen or Starmer’s Parliament. Who would take the chance?
If the UK’s Deep State goes down, it’ll do its damndest to take the monarchy with it.
And KCIII will do nothing to stop them.
The British government has proven to be unable to determine why British Steel is uncompetitive and only makes the problem worse. Keep in mind that this is the second time British Steel has been nationalized.
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