Charles Malet

The Steel Trap | UKColumn

Prior to 2025, the last time the Westminster Parliament was recalled on a Saturday was in April 1982, in order to debate the forthcoming Falklands War. Whether any kinetic action is presaged by the debate of Saturday, 12 April 2025, is not yet clear, but the Government wasted no time in confecting a backdrop of emergency. Forged over the course of that weekend was the Steel Industry (Special Measures) Act 2025, a piece of legislation deserving of as much scrutiny as the events which spawned it. Deception, doublespeak and hypocrisy at every turn, which should—by now—be expected by the British public.

The given reason for this state of affairs was that British Steel had informed the Business Secretary, Jonathan Reynolds MP, that their financial and operational position was such that there was a considerable risk of losing the blast furnace capability at its Scunthorpe plant. In short, steel-producing blast furnaces should not lose temperature, and coking coal is vital to the maintenance of high heat. The problem, so we are told, was that British Steel had not ordered any more coking coal and, thus, it appeared that their decision was to cease producing virgin steel, which would have left the UK without any capability to do so.

Not particularly British

We look to the Supreme Court to better understand the dearth of British-mined coking coal. In June 2024, they ruled against Surrey County Council and others, to stop oil drilling going ahead on the Weald. The reason for this, according to the learned Justices Kitchen, Sales, Leggatt, Rose, and Richards, was that the drilled oil would be burned, which would “produce greenhouse gas emissions”. The next sentence of the ruling is an outright lie, for it reads: “It is not disputed that these emissions will have a significant impact on climate”. This has been consistently and vigorously disputed and, what is more, this formerly bewigged collective can provide no substantive evidence for their claim of such an impact.

At the time, West Cumbria Mining planned to extract more than two and a half million tonnes of coking coal per annum, from a proposed site by Whitehaven. This will no longer proceed, thanks to the spurious decision of the Supreme Court which, in turn, renders steel production in the UK perennially vulnerable. The position on coking coal is but a foretaste of the litany of hypocrisies, contradictions and untruths to have emerged during this debacle; none of which should be considered accidental.

Just as a baseless fear of a changing climate was invoked to thwart a dependable supply of coking coal, a similarly flimsy fear of China was leant on where the owners of British Steel, Jingye, are concerned. Confected sinophobia has shaped British political rhetoric since the Opium Wars, and it seems just as effective on the masses in 2025. This time around, the Chinese firm stands accused of intentionally letting primary production grind to a halt, in order that they could focus on the parts of the business which were profitable, and import the remainder from China. Criticism based on the likely job losses at Scunthorpe may appear justified, but there is rather more to it.

The Business Secretary’s decision coincided, exactly, with the Trump Administration’s tariff chaos, the object of which is—for the most part—China. Given that the ‘special relationship’ between the United States and the United Kingdom had yielded a series of rather less than special tariffs on British goods, it is not such a stretch to consider that the Starmer regime regarded British Steel’s plight as an opportunity for a bit of public China-bashing. This hypothesis is supported by the Downing Street announcement of 8 May 2025, in which there is much crowing about saving “thousands of jobs” due to a “landmark economic deal”.

In fact, the most recent iteration of trade relations between the two countries begins to expose the pretence that the production of virgin steel in the UK is as critical as Jonathan Reynolds or Keir Starmer has insisted. Starmer reckons it is “in the national interest” to pursue a “Britain rebuilt with British steel”, yet he has just struck a deal ensuring British steel (of which there is not very much) can be sold into the States tariff-free. Hollow words come easily to the man. Change: The Labour Party Manifesto of 2024 made only brief reference to steel, but it was fairly prescriptive, describing a future in which it would support “our mission of making the UK a clean energy superpower”. They went further, in listing a number of activities for which steel was described as a “fundamental component”, pledging £2.5 billion to support the industry. The specified activities were: the construction of wind turbines, manufacturing electric or autonomous vehicles and “building the infrastructure needed to sustain our digital economy”.

Starmer: more hollow words

Scarcely a year on, UK Steel reports that, “In the last five years less than 2% of steel used in UK wind farms was fabricated in the UK, and almost none using UK made steel.” The “opportunity highlights” for suppliers into the ‘zero emission’ vehicle industry do include steel, but almost as an afterthought. It is named at the end of a list including “magnesium, carbon fibre composites, aluminium and matrix composites, titanium and glass fibre composites”, all of which are supposed to be lightweight, in order to mitigate against the phenomenal weight of the highly delicate batteries. As to the ‘digital economy’, which appears to be contingent upon the rise and rise of so-called ‘artificial intelligence’, the Institute for Public Policy Research reckons on as many as eight million job losses, which would be an irony were it brought about—in part—by the saving of a few thousand jobs in Scunthorpe.

Intelligent?

The manifesto pledge to steel is set in context by the £1 billion commitment to ‘carbon capture’, a technology which must rank as one of the most nugatory ever devised. Aside from the absence of any merit, it is very expensive, which is where it finds common ground with steel-making. The fanciful, destructive and exorbitant pursuit of ‘net zero’ has driven the price of electricity in the UK to levels far higher than that of the European producers. How, with a straight face, can the Business Secretary claim to be supporting the British steel industry?

Steel yourself: UK producers priced out of business

In addition to creating the strongest possible headwinds, the Government spat out a piece of legislation which any Marxist would have been proud of. However, prior to the Steel Industry Bill passing into law, an exchange of letters passed between Reynolds and his permanent secretary, Gareth Davies. Like much correspondence which is to be made public, it is bland and tame, save for one part. In his capacity as Principal Accounting Officer, Davies conducts a ‘value for money test’ which is required in Managing Public Money. Of the qualifying criteria, which are regularity, propriety, feasibility, and value for money, it is only the propriety hurdle which is cleared, through the contract with EY, for handling taxpayer funds. In other words, he is unable to provide any evidence of this course of action being a good idea.

Saving steel, or crime and punishment?

The introductory sentence makes reference to the “continued and safe use of assets of a steel undertaking”. Is this a nod to the Dearlove camp, in which touching anything Chinese could constitute a threat to ‘national security’ (unless it is a piece of ‘renewable energy’ technology)? The Act empowers the “entering into agreements, including contracts of employment” and “exercising a function of management in a particular way”; micromanagement in the extreme. Section 3 goes on to deal with the “power to take control of assets”. The Secretary of State, if he is so minded, may set about “entering, using force if necessary [emphasis added], the premises where the specified assets are situate”: language of a markedly aggressive nature. The Act does not nominate any ‘force’ to be at Reynolds’s disposal, meaning it really only legitimises him, alone, swaggering into a steelworks with his cricket bat over his shoulder. The tone of the Act continues, and it is pronounced that anyone committing an offence set out “is liable to be proceeded against and punished accordingly [emphasis added]”.

‘Force’ and ‘punishment’ may never befall anyone involved in the production of steel at Scunthorpe, but the important detail is that the precedent has been set, in legislative terms. Nationalisation, which this is not—yet—is not novel, but this is a hybrid, and a hybrid developed by a Government fully stocked with members of the Fabian Society. The pursuit and delivery of a one world government should be considered in every statement and every action of this particular Executive, for they are wolves in sheep’s clothing.

Were (successive) Governments sincere about supporting the steel industry and, indeed, the relevance of British-made steel to the British economy, there are a number of things that they would not have done. These would include denying the industry a local and secure source of coking coal: recent shipments have come from Japan, Sweden and Australia. They would not intentionally drive up energy prices, via the pursuit of unreliable and expensive ‘renewable’ energy, whilst not even ensuring that British-made steel is used in the infrastructure. They would not push combustion engine vehicles off the road, thus creating a need for lighter-weight materials than steel to be used in automotive manufacturing. At the present moment, the UK’s contribution to the world steel market is only 0.3% of the total, and China’s is 54%.

From the other side of the world

During a debate which precipitated this outcome, Lord Kerr asked: “why steel?” What he meant was why should the Government prop up such an industry, on the scant evidence of it being an issue of ‘national security’, when so many others are ignored. In what may almost be considered a tangle of Marxist thinking, it is as though the Government, casting itself as the proletariat, is intent on seizing the means of production from the Chinese bourgeoisie. When one considers that the State’s grip on education, health, agriculture, mining, and railways—in particular—was borne directly of the post-war assertion that it is only the Government which can rescue the population from such an ‘emergency’, then the Steel Industry Act 2025 begins to look a bit different. Perhaps Lord Kerr may have asked ‘what next’?

Further, it would be a mistake to consider this as distinct from the very concerted efforts by Governments to remove land from people and to remove people from land. The assault on the means of subsistence is as intense as it ever has been: it is no coincidence that the ‘net zero’ policy which hamstrings the steel industry is the very same one to discombobulate and, ultimately, to neuter the farmer. Environmental schemes are specifically designed to remove land from the production of food. This means that not only does the farmer become entirely dependent upon the Government, but also that he has no ability to trade if this support is withdrawn, as he no longer produces anything. “You’ll own nothing. And you’ll be happy”.

Rather than being viewed in isolation, the events surrounding the recent treatment of the steel industry should be regarded as a case study. Taking a tough stance on the conduct of a Chinese-owned business is a façade, or a fake narrative, especially when reviewed in the context of protecting either ‘jobs’ or ‘national security’ or, for that matter, the production of a relatively minute amount of steel. On the face of it, perhaps measures like these will result in a greater ability to hammer out trade deals with the United States, but what difference does that make to China, or indeed Jingye, which are in control of more than half the world’s steel?

To qualify such a point of view, it is to be noted that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), makes increasing references to its pursuit and protection of ‘food security’, despite the fact that it is not—in any way—bound to deliver such a thing. In fact, the term ‘food security’ appears only three times on the statute book and only ever as a “consideration” when devising environmental schemes. The Government is setting about delivering ‘national security’ by exactly the same means: putting every possible obstacle in the path of the very industry it purports to protect. The formula is familiar, but the method continues to evolve.

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