How ironic that British Steel goes into administration on the day before the European elections, putting 4,200 jobs at risk in a leave-voting constituency. And how utterly fatuous to blame Britain’s vote to leave the EU for the failure of the Scunthorpe plant.
There is a link with Brexit, but it is not the one mentioned in passing on BBC news bulletins this morning – that our leaving the EU has frightened off European customers.
If anything, the fall in the pound since 2016 should have helped British Steel, making its exports to the rest of the EU cheaper. But that has not been enough to counter the mass of cheap steel that is coming out of China. The Scunthorpe plant very nearly closed in 2016, when its then owner Tata Steel, decided to jettison it.
In the event it instead sold the plant to private equity group Greybull Capital for £1.
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