To be sad about the collapse of British Steel?

[Lightsabre]

25,000 jobs to go in an impoverished part of the country. Our once great Steel industry on its knees. Many of these areas voted for Brexit too without being informed of the economic considerations. A sad day and I feel for those communities and am very angry with this Government.

The British Steel industry hasn't been great since 1979 when it went from employing 300K to 100K people and by 1990 it was down to 50K.

China was outproducing the UK in terms of steel production by 1980 and in 2017 produced 110 times as much.

Whatever the many failings of this government are, the decline of the steel industry is not one of them. It was outcompeted on labour costs and a willingness to accept terrible pollution and poor safety standards by China a long time ago.

As for voters not being fully informed. What exactly was meant to happen, detailed guides for each profession e.g. steel workers being informed they would lose access to carbon trading schemes essential for the business to operate?

I have a lot of sympathy for those losing their livelihoods but we can't pretend that people were deliberately kept in the dark about how leaving a system designed to allow free trade & banking and standardisation of regulations could have a huge impact on an industry reliant on a healthy import/export market as well as access to global financial processes.

Many of these areas voted for Brexit too without being informed of the economic considerations

Not really sure how anyone can claim that.

But its ok we can buy cheap steel from elsewhere , just as we have been doing
25000 people's jobs gone .....those cheap goods were bloody expensive in the long run

Just like everything else we buy because it's cheaper

It's not sad Op , its a fucking disaster

Many of these areas voted for Brexit too without being informed of the economic considerations

They were as informed as all of the people who managed to deduce that Brexit was an economic disaster waiting to happen.

People who voted for Brexit will reap what they've sown. And the rest of us will just have to suffer along with them.

Greybull also owned Monarch and Comet when they crashed - they don't have a good track record

Don't blame Brexit , this has been a long time in the making , much as I hate Brexit I feel its going to be a convenient excuse for a lot more to come

Sorry but got to agree with the first reply.

We all received the same information about Brexit and there was no way that British steel could compete with cheaper imports. 25k jobs is a lot and I feel bad for those workers and families but this was sadly inevitable.

@hellsbells99 Greybull's raison d'etre is buying up failing businesses. Some of these will be able to be turned around, some won't. I do think they were daft to buy this company after the Brexit vote though. I'm also pretty sure they will have made sure they are not personally out of pocket.

Greybull are known as asset strippers for a reason @namechage34

British Steel were reducing staff back in the 70's, not recruiting or filling jobs when someone left. Or replacing with lower salaried staff. I worked for them.

Google will tell you about the closures.

I'm a cowbag. Take that as given.
That area voted 69% for Brexit.
A factor in this collapse happening now is huge loss of orders from Europe.

Of course it's a huge bad blow for many people who made no political choices. :(
Everyone could have seen it coming.

It's a shame, and the job losses are sad. However, shit happens. Life has changed, society has changed, and 10s of 1000s of people have lost their jobs due to multiple dozens of major employers/companies shutting.

It could have implications for our rail services, especially if there is a no-deal Brexit.

Not the only industry to suffer because of it, look at how badly many parts of retailing are doing.

This is another in an already established series of Brexit-related casualties.

It is a shame. It's always sad when companies have to close and people lose their jobs, but

25,000 jobs to go in an impoverished part of the country.

is completely wrong. Only about 5,000 are employed in this country.

By all means get cross and upset, but don't talk bollocks!

I live in the local area and I'm sad to say this has been on the cards for years, poor management, asset stripping, overpriced and not competitive against other countries. And brexit is the final nail in the coffin, no one in their right mind would buy steel off us, if they don't know what it will cost in 6 months time when they receive it due to tariffs.

Some local charmers are blaming the eu but actually seem to be getting shot down and i had one smile this afternoon, their hero nigal farage was shown to have voted against the eu in protecting eu steel against the chinese, which pissed a few of them off.

5000 jobs at the plant are at risk, this company is our towns biggest employer, 20k jobs related to the plant are on the line now too. That's a quater of our towns population who's jobs and income at risk. It's a travesty. We already have high rates of unemployment in the area and no real opportunities but factory and warehouse work plus the steel works.
I feel most sorry for the young people who have been promised apprenticeships who have now been told the months of hard work they out in are now on the line due to some adults voting for brexit

Nothing to do with Brexit only a fool who knows absolutely nothing about it would say otherwise. It is entirely down to massive and cheap production from China. If anything the EU have hindered our steel industry by preventing subsidies. The Italian government is currently in trouble for subsidising their steel industry.

The steelworks has needed millions of pounds of investment for decades. The equipment there is not capable of meeting current environmental standards and hasn’t been for years.

I am very anti-Brexit, but Brexit or not, the site would have needed far more investment than it could repay. It’s sad, but pretty much inevitable given the handling of the business over the past decades. The people of Scunthorpe and Teesside have my sympathies.

It seems a spectacularly bad idea for the government not to subsidise it ( as France did for their ailing steel industry) given that we are about to leave the EU. We are still going to need steel which we will now have to purchase from elsewhere-I know we did to a certain extent anyway but now we won't have a choice in the matter-and we surely won't be in as strong a position for trade negotiations on anything, including steel once we leave. We aren't the huge and influential country (trade wise) that Nigel Farage thinks we are.

Wouldn't it be better if we at least had a chance at being self sufficient? Isn't that what Brexit was meant to do? Make Britain great again, restore our self sufficiency-isn't that what it said on all the UKIP leaflets and in the Daily Mail?
Wow-it's almost as if it was all bollocks isn't it?

I am sad about it. Im from Sheffield. My dad worked in the steel industry all his life. And as he says, all we've got to show for it is a nice cutlery set 🤷🏽‍♀️.

Just wanted to clear the 25k jobs bit up, 5k are employed by the steel works themselves but over 20k jobs rely on the steel works themselves and the work they bring it. This will kill our town off, over a quater of our town may face losing their jobs, or reductions in hours and this will kill us off

Yes it's not just the steel jobs themselves it's the other jobs that rely on the industry and in turn the areas economy. That's where the 25 k job figure comes from...

Dispelling a bit of your crap @Singletomingle. In 2014 the eu wanted to introduce the lesser duty rule, which would have increased tarrifs on chinese steel. The uk blocked it, not the eu.

State aid rules which stop us subsidising it with money actually are uk and wto rules as well as eu rules.

Now the uk gov own the site, we can state aid it.

@Singletomingle, it is also to do with brexit because orders from the eu and across the globe have dropped, very few people want to buy steel which can take months to complete an order of, if they don't know the price at the end of the process. Why would they buy uk steel if in 6 months we may have to add wto tarriffs to the price, when they can get german steel at a set price?

Nothing to do with Brexit only a fool who knows absolutely nothing about it would say otherwise

Brexit is what every steel industry expert is saying is the immediate cause for British Steel collapse, carbon trading and a drying up of export orders as they don't know the tariff schedules going forward.

Terrible for the workers, however they voted, as it was a UK national decision and v bad for UK Plc going forward, we don't know how the on-going Chinese/US trade wars will end and we may well need UK steel.

No one is buying steel from anywhere other than China. China producing more steel.in a year than Britain produces in a century. It is insanely cheap and has been since the eighties. It has plenty to do with the EU but nothing, absolutely nothing to do with Brexit. No wants to buy steel from the UK because they arent sure whether British steel will exist in 6 months and if it goes up by 10% or down by 10% it will still be twice the cost of Chinese steel.