Has Labour abandoned the steel industry?

We will no doubt hear lots of familiar excuses if later this week, as seems increasingly likely, the British steel industry faces 50 per cent tariffs on its exports to the United States. There hasn’t been enough time. The White House has been too busy, and so has the Prime Minister. The trouble is, none of them make sense. And so when these tariffs kick in, the Labour government, which we might expect to defend a traditional heavy industry, will have abandoned steel to its fate. 

When the 9 July deadline for the suspension of President Trump’s tariffs expires, we can expect chaos in the global trading system. The EU’s over-confident and arrogant negotiators have failed to reach a deal, leaving every exporter in the bloc facing huge tariffs from Thursday onwards. Amid all that, it might be easy to miss a small but still significant problem. The suspension of full tariffs on British-made steel will also come to an end, and, without an agreement, the industry will also face huge levies.

This could be catastrophic for the industry. ‘Every day of delay costs our steelmakers dearly,’ argued UK Steel, the trade body for the industry. ‘Contracts slip away, investment plans stall and uncertainty freezes business decisions’. 

It could hardly come at a worse time. The industry has already been hit by a barrage of green levies and targets. It has to face some of the highest industrial electricity prices in the world. The Budget last year imposed higher National Insurance charges on every person it employs. The list goes on and on. British Steel has already been taken under emergency control by the government after its Chinese owners gave up on it, and with 50 per cent tariffs the rest of the industry may give up as well. And yet, despite that, the government has not had the energy or commitment to negotiate an exemption for the UK, even though other exporters will face just 10 per cent tariffs in the US.

There is a bigger point than just steel. The UK’s industrial base is being wiped out, with almost every week bringing news of yet another closure. Last week it was the Prax Lindsey oil refinery and in the week before, Nippon Electric Glass announced the closure of the UK’s largest fibreglass factory.

Starmer’s Labour government should be defending the interests of the people who worked in these kinds of jobs. Instead, it is complacently allowing the steel industry to be wiped out – and doesn’t appear to care much about any other manufacturers either.