Is this the end of British manufacturing?
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- čas přidán 25. 01. 2024
- Rishi Sunak is at a precipice:appease the owner of TATA steel, or save 3000 jobs.
If he chooses the former, the UK will become the only country in the G20 that does not produce its own steel.
If he chooses the latter, he saves the economy of South Wales.
We went to Port Talbot to speak to employees, past and present, and those who know their town is on the brink of collapse.
Reporter: Ava Santina
Camera: Seán Hickey
Edit: Seán Hickey and Cem Ibrahim
Subscribe to our new podcast now, or you're a silly goose:
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They are talking about a citizens army to counter the threat of Russia and we can’t even make our own steel. What a joke.
If you can't or won't produce your own steel then you're not a country.
it takes 25years to ramp up war production, russia has a head start, meanwhile we're shutting down the industry needed in the future conflict that has already started.
100 %
Perhaps they need to thin the population a bit since they are planning on re-purposing the UK to a low quality financial service hub.
Remember, the tories call us cattle.
@anpj2006 The politicians are delusional, I was talking about this with a friend recently. I run a machine shop and nearly all the other material we buy in is imported, do they not realize that India is allied with Russia through the BRICS group? they don't seem to be able to do "joined up thinking". The manufacturing industry in this country has been so badly debased we don't stand a chance.
This country is a total dump. It’s just broken on every level.
Yep. Its the people who voted for Brexit screwed it up for the next 10-20 years. Thank them for this situation around all areas NHS, GDP, trade, growth, jobs, cost of living. Notice how the steel works in the EU aren't closing. Cant wait to leave this shit hole full of dumb and ignorant people warped by right wing media, right wing Government lies and still believe in it.... so dumb. For me and my partner Australia here we come. Got friends out there in Brisbane and Darwin who will help.
You got what you voted for.
@@DontwatchBIt’s not a matter of voting…
The country and its people are not a dump. A lot of good people of all races and backgrounds. The sad thing is we allow the lose at the top to divide us and see our neighbour as an enemy because he may pray to a different God and dress differently. Whereas those taking everyone's jobs are politicians making bad decisions that serve themselves before the people. It is clear the government holds the people of Wales in contempt yet the newspapers feed us lies about migrants crossing the seas taking our jobs. The government could solve the issue. Yet they couldn't care less. Devastation is a by product they are willing to tolerate
@@DontwatchB I voted remain. And have never voted Tory scum. But I’m sure most of Wales voted to leave the EU and oddly vote Tory scum … welcome to Tory land of death and decay (Wales) 💀 ⚰️ ☣️
Wales is constantly ignored. The steelworks is Port Talbot and Port Talbot is the steelworks. I left school to the miner's strikes and Thatcher's recession. I've moved back to Wales, and the Tories are still destroying our communities. The utter disdain we're constantly on the receiving end of is the reason that Tories don't get too far in Wales. They're a poison that kills everything they come into contact with.
Is that the same Wales where the majority voted Brexit, put their trust in the Tories despite the EU pumping millions in to small welsh towns to try and revive them.
You wanted cleaner steel. Well this is it.
They mothballed Tata in Hartlepool 7/8 years ago… no one gave a single solitary shit
Because Wales was run by Labour
@@simonb7711 Exactly.
This all started with Thatcher in the 80s and has progressed to the present day. There’s a tipping point where once you’ve lost industries that make this country tick, there’s no return from a steep decline and inevitable crash of economic stability.
Like this champagne-sipping socialist knows what it’s like to suffer the loss of working class industries. She is part of the problem.
No, it was you bells demanding cleaner energy. This is the cost
@@bfc2155 How? Tata Steel Netherlands (owned by the same Indian company) recently had Blast Furnace 6 go through a major repair and modernisation programme (from their own website) and were also given £500 million from tax payers last year so clearly the company has the money. Tata Steel UK had until 2050 to change to a more green energy source set out by the UK government to reduce emissions. So the demand for cleaner energy, they had 26 years to put that in place so nothing to do with that.
The decline has been going on for decades.
@@bfc2155 The aim is to achieve Net Zero by 2050, so it doesn't apply in this case. Besides, who _wouldn't_ want cleaner energy? It can only do good for health and the environment, regardless of whether one believes in climate change or not.
I was a third generation Steelworker in Port Talbot until I left 10 years ago.
People around the country need to understand that you will have a large section of South Wales (from past Swansea to almost Cardiff)slipping into further poverty
There is little other industry in this area to accommodate up to 10,000 unemployed.
Lives will be devastated and the area culturally and financially destroyed as people will have to move away or take low paid work that will not utilise the skills they have earned in one of the most dangerous and technical work places on the planet.
It’s such a shame,I’m devastated for everyone affected by this.
I served my apprenticeship on Horwich railway works , the most efficient railway works that British rail had at the time . Thatcher and her tories closed it one year after I had finished my apprenticeship in 1983 (after I had got married and got a big mortgage) . The town was devastated as were the surrounding towns and villages.
I know what these people are facing because I went through it myself , as a young man .
I can only offer my upmost support and solidarity for these people .
But one thing I will say is that we knew that Thatcher and her cronies didn't care one iota for manufacturing industry then and nothing has changed in the 40 odd years since .
We knew who the enemy was . The situation is rather different now, with this plant , due to the need to decommission the old coke furnaces because of carbon immisisions.
But how on earth can anyone blame Labour for "screwing the steelworks over for 14 years " ?
I may be wrong but I thought that the deciples of Thatcher had been in government for the past 14 years🤔 ?
France, Germany and Italy have all gone through the same thing, Maggie didn't shut steelworks down in France, it was because the EU allowed China to flood Europe with cheap goods, 10's of millions of manufacturing jobs have been lost all over Europe and the EU thought it was better to subsidise butter and let manufacturing go under.
British Rail Engineering Ltd closed Horwich. Millions of people in Britain have had to change jobs in their lifetime. Manufacturing in Britain has been in decline since the late 1950's which coincided with the beginning of the loss of empire and therefore our captive markets and the rise of Japan, the US and Germany
@@willyhill7509The killers of trade are the architects of globalisation
With the rise of BRICS and a possible third world war I don’t think we should be dependant (the west and its allies) on these countries. Granted it might mean things are more expensive but higher levels of supply chain security. Or outsourcing was just a ruse to stuff the pockets of the higher ups even more.
@@xtc2vMade some of the best rail carriages
Governmental incompetence and short term greed. What have they done to my country?
correction what did we allow them to do to our country. we put them in, part of the blame also lies with us.
It started decades ago, hardly a revelation. Not to mention people who voted for Brexit significantly sped this up.
you voted them in , you tell me. and don't say you didn't , the numbers speak for themself.
Sell everything and get nice backhanders
@@jordondraggon1459 I didn't vote them in
AUSTRALIAN HERE - We've had the same sorts of discussions here for over 30 years as we shut down industry after industry. At the beginning of this the reporters asks - _"Who's to blame? Is it climate hysteria is it Brexit or is it the current conservative Administration?"_
*The answer to that is the same as the answer we have in Australia - NONE OF THEM.*
How could these problems in Wales be linked to the same problems in Australia?
Simple - This is the result of decisions made well over 30 years ago in the 1980s when the Western World flipped its economics from Keynesian economics over to free market Neoliberalism. In Britain you called it Thatcherism. In Australia we called it Economic Rationalism and the Americans called it Reaganomics. Today its call called Neoliberalism.
I'm actually an aerospace engineer who works in industrial control systems, robotics and automation. Back in 2016 I had a small consulting job that highlighted an incredibly serious issue with Australia's energy sector AND NOBODY was doing anything about it. Worse we still aren't. So I started looking into *WHY?*
Other than "Greed is Good"_ a Key part of Milton Friedmans free market doctrine is that the government shall do as little as possible and let the markets react and respond to changes in demand. The stupidity of this is that people like Milton Freidman had no understanding of industrial sectors or logistics. To this day economists still have NO UNDERSATNDING of industry or logistics. I recently found out that they don't even include energy in their economic models. That's absurd because it means they have no idea of the stuff that we use to convert raw materials into finished products or what it takes to move those raw materials and products around so they are where people can buy them. Australian economist Steve Keen has been pointing this out for years only to be dismissed by the Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Yale types.
Gary Stevenson the young British economist that all you Brits should be listening too, did a great video on _"Why economists are always wrong." What he explains are some inherent failures in both the education of economists, how they formulate economic policies, act on those polices and *HOW THEY FAIL.*
I know Gary is always talking about issues in Britain but there are times when it feels like he's talking about Australia and that's *because we are all running on similar economic ideology.*
Couldn't agree with you more. Here in the US, we are dealing with the same issues. Reganomics has been terrible for the country. Every where this neoliberalism model has taken hold, the middle class has either died, or is in the process of dying.
Well said!
@@OhNotThat Thanks
@@tonywilson4713- what's your definition of Neoliberalism? I want to see if it's the same in AU as the USA (or Reaganomics as you call it). Funny thing about Reaganomics, Bush Senior said it was voodoo economics, just to see his son and the entire GOP embrace it 2 decades later.
@@arcadion448 I had a boss back in the 90s who tried to explain to me what was being pushed as *_"Economic Rationalism."_* I didn't pay much attention at the time out of a lack of interest but it was coming from BOTH SIDES of politics. Among its major tenements:
- With the exception of 3 specific things Government can NOT do anything right while the private sector does everything better. Those 3 things are DEREGULATE, LOWER TAXES and PRIVATISE.
- DON'T stop telling everyone that "competition provides better services at lower prices." So that nobody will see you are allowing large foreign investors to MONOPOLISE your basic services.
- All forms of organised labor and unionism are WRONG, WRONG and WRONG!
- Consumers will be better off when we send all the manufacturing jobs to countries with lower wages because despite NOT having a job they can buy cheaper goods.
I didn't grasp at the time what my boss was trying to tell me but his words have come to haunt me.
Its all the same sorts of things that I hear people describe from all over the world.
I just watched Gary Stevenson (a Brit) do a 1 hour podcast with James O'Brien on the YT channel LBC.
I've just started watching a Christopher Sweat talk to Mark Blyth & Sven Steinmo and they are dissecting Neoliberalism like Hannibal Lector.
Can’t wait for Keir to come out and say Labour will “look closely” at the closure then do absolutely nothing about it.
This country has not planned for the future since the 1950's. British Leyland died due to complacency and lack of investment, deep coal went with nothing to replace it. Car manufacturing was sold abroad, the energy sector was sold abroad, we were leaders in nuclear but no longer. We were a leader in the energy sector but where are the plans and investment in the UK for after oil? Brexit was not planned for, we have just fallen off the end and we are still trying to find our place. We need steel and cement (another high energy requiring product) - where is that going to come from now?
...and how much are we going to be bent over a barrel to pay for it?
I don't think anyone noticed !!! I started work in 1960 and from day one wondered how long this place was going to last and i was bang on right. It shut 15 years later. it just took a long time to die !!! I was long gone by then moving on to the next place to die.
42 yrs of tory rule
Car, train, plane and ship manufacturing all disappeared in the 60s and 70s. Never known a country to throw away so much in so little time!
Well Thatcher thought the future was in us all becoming an army of "Leesons" running around finance conning the world !!!
What has not been said is this. Tata Steel has just started to use IN INDIA, 2 BRAND NEW furnaces identical to those it is closing in Wales. Britain will be importing the steel from India instead of making it in Wales. So our Indian Prime Minister,Sunak ,has given 500 million to Tata in Wales to make 3000 people redundant,wreck a whole local community and yet again badly affected our balance of economy.
Except rishi sunak isn't Indian is he. He's British. Stupid comment that smacks of spiteful racism because something you didn't like happened and you decided to try and make it about race.
Love to see so-called left-wingers in the comments section finally feeling brave enough to tentatively dip their toes in the toes of xenophobia / racism-lite now that the big ol' Boogeyman Tory party are being led by an Indian. Some of you "lefties" are a few bad days removed from the Far-Right 😂😂. We see you 😅
Ever notice how these "free market" hucksters never have a problem with government subsidies when they get them?
Shame on you... Tata steel is major steel producer for last 150 yrs.. it doesn't need outdated furnace...wait if you know what you are talking... Tata have furnace was last few centuries... Furnacw are not rocket science...byku have to be dumb to think steel production is some state secret..😂😂😂..
It has to do with..UK climate policy
Labour should immediately commit to reversing this decision by nationalising all strategic industry and reconstituting those firms as employee managed, socially owned cooperatives.
Absolutely impossible after entering CPTTP - companies losing any money would sue the UK not for billions but for trillions!
And these law cases would not be in front of official UK courts but in private run courts somewhere in any CPTTP country.
We going to need it but the tories have sold the country out .
It's about the government of the day paying the Indian company, TATA STEEL at the cost of thousands of British jobs proves that the government is not on the side of We the People question is what are we going to do about it supercedes everything else folks
Im all for maintaining these jobs but you're delusional if you think they'll come back as a Co-op.
Dream on if you think Labour gives 2 f’s about working people.
Local people need independent local representatives to stand up for them and together form a consensus to move forward!
Never in the field of human history has so much been thrown away by so few in such a short time!
52.9% voted for this . Everyone was warned and most politicians classed that as scaremongering
Clean energy furnaces?
Redcar steelworks closed in 2015, when Britain was a member of the European Union.
Not me
@@davidpryle3935 That's a fallacious non-sequiter.
@@TheYahmez It’s a fact, that doesn’t suit the narrative, in other words.
We must re-nationalize the steel industry. We simply cannot allow this to happen!!
If this happens, we'll be the only major economy in the world, not to produce it's own steel!!
Imagine how much profit Tata would want now to make that happen, they just received the biggest grant in UK history 4 months before doing this. Make it carbon neutral ( grants) to take the work abroad.
I’d prefer to spend public funds on the health service. Corporate welfare is rarely a good thing. An intelligent government would rejoin the single market and reduce red tape for all British businesses.
@@iwasntaguntilimovedouttheh3961
If Tata steel don't want, and are closing it anyway. I'm sure a deal could be done. It could be done!!
I'm not sure it matters a whole lot if we don't mine both Iron and Coal in large enough quantities to make domestic prices affordable in order to manufacture competitive steel. If we can't make the steel competitive on a gobal market then it's not sustainable. The fact is our industry has decayed is because we stopped producing the materails for our industry to use. Leaving the EU has only made it harder and more expensive for our manufacturing industries to operate because we're so dependent on imports.
@@Gph0367 Tata steel own it now, they bought it for 1.2 billion, Sunak give them a 500 million grant and was on camera with Tata steel executives saying we are going to make it carbon neutral, carbon neutral = making steel abroad. His mocking us on camera, you must realise how father in law probably as multi millions in shares in Tata. The Government won't buy it back now, the company would crash it would be like giving Tata a double grant just buying it back for 1.2 billion they would have made a billion.
Just after brexit I picked up a senior tata official we talked about brexit his view ...your country is finished...he was right sadly. We need a GE.
I've spent most of my working life in manufacturing, I've gone through two manuifacturing industries that are now practically gone in the UK. The two industries are still widely used products but it's all be outsourced to other countries. In both cases, once the UK manufacturing base died out the countries that the work was outsourced to began to ramp up prices.
There is no stategic overview when it comes to businesses and industries that are run by accountants and the demands of shareholders. Disgusting.
Deindustrialisation - great for our net zero stats! Not so much for our population.
@@henner1231Agreed but Net Zero is being twisted to carry out nefarious bullshit whilst turning opinion against emissions reductions.
The first thing everyone needs to understand is that if we continue to fuck up the climate then everything else is irrelevent.
Once that is established then the next step is to look at how a fair transition can begin; half a mother fucking billion pounds should be enough to establish low carbon steel production on the Port Talbot site whilst continuing production from the existing infrastructure. As the new furnaces come online the existing workforce can be retrained to operate them.
Some simple measures such as requiring UK infrastructure to utilise UK produced products would be a damn good start and in line with many other countries across the world.
@@henner1231more like workers in poorer countries make the same stuff for shit wages. We can’t compete.
@@henner1231 Also just a bait and switch... It's just outsourcing the carbon emissions!
Remember Consett, Corby, Scunthorpe and Brymbo ( Wrexham ). This is just the end of a sad story of low investment and ultimate decline !!
Is it just a coincidence that Tata Steel is opening a massive blast furnace in India, most likely employing cheap, non unionised workers. Seems the Indian Trade Deal just got better for them
Bet sunak will be getting a slice
Once the Sunak dream of the Milford Haven/Bridport Freeport gets up and running the workers at TaTa will be re-employed on terms and conditions far worse than those of the Indian workforces. Tick, tick 😢
India is going to increase steel production capacity to 300 million tons by 2026. UK can’t compete with India anymore - you guys are toast. As an Indian living in Uk I can’t help but laugh 😂
@@senanur1983 Seeing as how India just landed a probe on the moon with the latest Russian mission crashing and the Japanese mission running into critical difficulties, I think that's more of a compliment to India's industrialisation rather than an insult to the UK. The Tories have successfully wrecked every local economy outside of London, after all.
@@senanur1983you should start saying this to English peoples faces.
Whilst this is awful news I can’t help but feel this is an ‘I told you so’ moment. Port Talbot and Neath voted overwhelmingly to leave the EU. It really amazes me that these areas had so little awareness of the amount of EU funding that was pumped in, matched by the Labour government to support the economic development of Wales in the early 2000s. The sums were staggering, 6 billion pounds! Those funds are gone now and the conservative government has no interest in propping up failing economies, so this story is terribly sad, but completely expected.
They crushed them in 70s why would they vote tory
Its insane that we have the highest tax burden per capita (I think) and we still can't afford to support british industry.
@@MyName-cw4yrbecause we are completely uncompetitive, high taxes, high mandatory minimum wages, too many statutory holidays, union action protected by the government.
Also we spend all our money on subsidising individual, pension, benefits and PIP. The shirking class is sucking the nation dry.
@@MyName-cw4yr not the highest if you're rich.
I agree in general, but only 53% of Neath constituents voted Leave, which was just above the UK average. In contrast, 60% of Aberafan (Port Talbot) constituents voted for Brexit.
The taxpayer is buying the electric arc furnace for TATA. Isn’t private enterprise wonderful ?
Government should have bought it for a £1 and built one electric and one new blast furnace . Loss making due to energy cost and pollution taxes !
This is the governments fault if private industry was not being messed with energy wouldnt cost as nuch and it wouldnt be shutting down. Yet the government want people to think this is a problem with private industry and we need more government. We need less govenrmemt
@@KowBoySpace The government is usualy the problem, but complete free trade means all the steel produciton in the UK is owned by foreign countries like India. You need some level of government and protectionism to stop foreign countries pillaging our industries.
@@quillo2747 why by default would specifically steel companies be all owned by foreign companies? And what is the problem with a company being owned by a foreign company? It is the tax laws that make companies foreign stop taxing them and they would be domestic companies
Yeah I think rishi brother in law is something to do with tata
Regards from India, Yr erstwhile colony, one of the largest current steel manufacturers in the world. Namaste
It's the second largest but the hap between first and second is way way higher than second and third
I think it is high time people started to realise that there is no need to pay anything to renationalise any industry. With steel, all that is required is to set a law in motion of national security, take over the steelworks itself and leave the current "owners" - including Rishi's wife's family - fight in court for any money back, add in the bills of our investment to that court case and the delay will be years if not decades before anything is paid out.
It is the same for utility companies, no need to bail them out or buy them out, just set up direct competitors to them without the massive salaries and shareholder profits. Reinvest the excess into public services and infrastructure.
Instead of paying a CEO £10m per year, pay them £200k and pay a further 245 workers £40k per year.
This is simple stuff that gets no logical discussion or traction due to the media manipulation of the working class and their stupidity falling for capitalism is the only way.
You would single handily scare away every industry, every investor, and every business over 25 people, out of the country. Whilst labelling us the most unsafe and instable nation to do business. You would be telling every business "we will steal your business whenever we deem fit".
Yeah show them how dumb capitalism is by stealing their stuff. That’ll show them who’s morally righteous. /s
Not falling for a morality arguement they were all stolen from the workers that built them by maggie. So taking them back for free tough.
"their stuff" they bought it for pennies on the dollar when it was privatised in the first place!@@inphowatcher9748
If the government was to renationalise industries, what do you think would happen to investment in the uk? You'd cause far more issues than you'd solve.
The second idea about setting up a not for profit equivalent company is one that Labour is looking at.
You cant complain about Tata building in India they are a indian company. We need to actually have british companies again. We've sold of everything to foreign investors and the first thing they will do when things get hard is dump these assets or reduce the costs.
Tata EV announced a 10 billion pound EV and battery plant in UK that will give around 5000 jobs. Steel in UK is expensive and was running at a loss.
You telling me that Sunaks father in-law as not got a load of shares in Tata, how can you give 500 million to a company that cuts thousands of jobs months later, what about other jobs lost in the chain. Sunak as just sold British industry for 700 million after biggest grant in UK history.
Sunak's father in law doesn't have shares in TATA and even without it he's a billionaire 😂
And 500 million is peanuts, given that they have to replace blast furnaces, the official amount required was 1.25 Billion.Check it yourself if you don't believe me, the govt released only 500 million, now when you're running a business, you can't keep bleeding money waiting for the government to release the rest.
The present prime minister wouldn't mind more business going to India probably he will have a share in that too. Tories have completely destroyed this country.
Yes sunik father in law in India by using company in others name receive all business from uk . Sunik family enjoying profit from British company fall
Tata is an indian company, it was running on loss in UK.
@@bpnk5237 😂😂😂 this is Indian company strategy, to avoid competitors. By observing big company failing no new will enter there. India companies always do this they show only fake loss finance statement
Fool Tata is an Indian company. We have Tata since its origin
@@kishorekannan2630 tata is a indian MNC . Rishishunaks inlaws are in IT buisness. Their is no overlapp of i treat. With addition green tax, high energy cost and weird regulation for green steel is the cause of plant shutting down not rishishunaks
I didn’t know anything that was happening concerning steel works in Wales. It’s appalling the way these workers are treated. Thank you so much for this informative video!
Cant they just transition to Turkish Barbers and coffee shops?
Don’t forget vape shops, mobile phone repair shops and charity shops.
@@anpj2006 where at saturation point for Turkish barbershops, vape shops, cash converters and coffee shops in south Wales
Dont forget Greggs and pawn shops 😂
Don't forget that the tories are going after the vapes...nothing left soon.
@@funnycustard8901 Shit ! That’s the only growth industry we’ve got down here in south Wales 😱
We need more of this type of journalism
Strategically this cant be good for the uk and add this to the 3 day postal service and i have ask WTF is going on with the 🇬🇧?
Meh, that’s not the issue. The real issue is what Adam smith said 300 years ago.
Every pound spent outside the national economy is a loss of two.
The only offset would be if you buy something from outside the national economy and sell it for more outside the economy.
Money spent in the uk on products made in the uk only maintain our wealth.
Items made in the uk and sold outside the uk grow our wealth.
3 day postal services is terrible for businesses that rely on the Royal mail for letters aswell stores that send out parcels via royal mail. Our NHS still end appointment letters out via post aswell.
Also economics aside the lack of any steel produced in the UK is a concern for national security, as we will have to rely on imports for our war effort.
We are getting poorer for years due to increased competition from the East and third world immigration.
@@henner1231Wtf has this got to do with immigration? Clown.
The guy in the red coat spoke so well about this situation! Really feel for the port talbot steel workers and the area
Brexit campaigners had approximately one economist supporting them: Prof Minford. He was quite confident that Brexit would result in the destruction of UK industry and UK farming.
I guess that some things are working out then......
Redcar steelworks closed in 2015, when Britain was a member of the European Union.
@@davidpryle3935 a man shrunk his jumped in 2014. Eus fault too
What are you talking about? The EU hastened the demise of UK manufacturing as companies moved out of the UK to labour-cheap EU nations so goods could be imported tariff-free.
@@0w784g Regulations protect workers & allow for functional trade by mutual agreement. How'dyo expect to sell anythin without agreement on labour terms? We fked it when startin trade with countries who allow cheap labour without protection for workers or care for human rights. Can't compete with prison slave labour & don't want to niether.
@@0w784g London crazies claimed to have leverage for UNIlateral trade agreement outside EU. That's not how things work, you can't expect to sell your expensive fair trade goods to poorer countries at gunpoint. Can't expect to tell whole of EU what rates you want from outside the club niether.
That bacon, egg, sausage monster looked incredible o,o
best comment
Fast way to heart attack food.
@@senanur1983 True, wouldn't want to eat it every day that's for sure
@@senanur1983not in moderation.
Boomers destroyed British Steel like everything else.
--Boomers-- Thatcher. Fixed that for you.
@@ftumschk who elected Thatcher, who laid down for Thatcher and Blair.
@@yellowgreen5229 It's what Thatcher did _after_ she got into power that screwed things up. Most people didn't vote for mass privatisation, and some traditional Conservatives - many of them "boomers" - weren't exactly fans of what she did.
@@ftumschk that changes nothing, it was a generation not individuals. Traditional Conservatives are just reactionaries who throw power at capitalists and screw everyone because of their inability to learn new things and hatred to others.
Fighting a losing battle , government shut our dockyard 40 years ago . There’s no hope for this area . Wellcome to Third Worid Britain. The Goverment don’t care . Everybody on minimum wage. You will all be happy
I honestly cannot believe this is where we are in 2024, to contemplate that we'll soon no longer be able to make our own steel, its absolutely abhorrent, as mentioned below, this has to be one of the biggest risks we face to national security.
The employees were warned about brexit, Wales was being supported by EU developments. But no, they thought the Tories were wonderful.
England gives Wales £25bn per year. The EU gave Wales £375m. Please just stop with the misinformation as to the downfall of Wales.
Green policies are to blame, not everything is about Brexit.
Industry in the UK has been dying since the 70s, we will be much poorer in the future because of these stupid policies. Globalisation and green policies are responsible.
You might want to target the real villains. Those responsible for massive misinformation. Media companies, lying politicians, Cambridge Analytica whose actions were criminal, or they should have been. (Your comment oozes with arrogance).
@@chrisjie2127 25 billion , with a B , you say... where is it going? I don't see sky scrapers in wales , I don't see high speed railways , I don't see flying cars ... where's the money going?
"Retraining fund" How are they gonna retrain 10,000 people and not have some massive detrimental economic effect? There aren't 10,000 new jobs for them.
Once the Blast Furnaces go you can bet some of the secondary plants will close down afterwards.
Can you see these plant receiving billets from abroad? We will end up having to buy Tube, Slab, Sheet, Tinplate, Coil, Rolled products from companies situated close to surviving Blast Furnaces.
Iron and Steel have tended to be integrated industries to keep transport and energy costs as low as possible.
Electric arc furnaces will take up some of the slack but virgin Iron, to be converted to steel, is always required eventually.
Sweden had planned on building a Blast type Furnace to use Hydrogen, instead of Coke, as the reduction agent.
"The Boden plant will use hydrogen produced from renewable electricity - rather than coal - to deliver steel in a process emitting as much as 95% less CO2 than steel produced with traditional blast furnace technology, the company has said".
But the plant has been put on hold for the time being which is a shame!
I do wonder that the UK doesn't consider this course of action because, in all probability, eventually this technology will have to be adopted to reduce CO2 emissions from Iron Production, and those in at the beginning are more likely to steal the march!
But ,sigh, we are talking about a country led by greedy and backward thinkers!
It's not just Sweden, there are a number of companies around the world now trialling hydrogen.
Apart from that there are also developments using electrolysis (Metal Oxide Electrolysis) to produce new steel, that uses electricity and eliminates hydrogen. In the long term I think only electricity would be needed to produce new steel and recycle old steel, but that is a longer way off into the future.
Meanwhile hydrogen should be the goal and the government should focus H2 for steel and other high temperature processes.
@@Paul-yh8kmMOX Didn't know about that one will have to research. I am supposing electrolysis is used to pull the oxygen atoms from the Iron atoms, in the ore, to produce Iron. If possible, within cost restraints, would produce extremely high quality, if not nigh on pure, Iron.
Thanks for the info.
@@mandywithell
Engineering with Rosie has a video that covers the green steel subject:
czcams.com/video/jWD2nI5RhpI/video.htmlfeature=shared
And Just Have a Think has a number:
www.youtube.com/@JustHaveaThink/videos
@@Paul-yh8km Thanks very much. Will watch tonight.
I am not a chemist but understand the basic principles and as usual the issue in all "new" tech it is cost, (and inertia) , that slows adoption it would seem!
Shame we can't have politicians that have a little foresight and try to put Britain in the lead!
Isn't it interesting that post war , when the country was effectively bankrupt we, for a very short time, were leaders in some Techs, ie. Nuclear Power, Aviation? Where has it all gone wrong?🤔
I sympathise with those who didn't vote for Brexit or BoJo, the others are getting what they wanted.
In all fairness one of the best explanations of what Steel means to Port Talbot and what the community is facing
The current crop of tories just continuing where Thatcher left , my grandfather said then never ever ever vote Tory
I work for a large European steel manufacturer with a large presence in the UK. When brexit happened we lost a few customers as they thought we weren't capable of keeping up with the local market. They were really proud of themselves too. All to happy to tell us where to stick our business. Following brexit they've been slowly crawling back to us or have gone under completely. Brexit has inadvertently increased our profits and has strengthened our position in the market. Not quite the outcome they were hoping for 😂
Who would have hoped for that? Troll
@@nicks4934 Troll? It seems plausible to me. UK customers telling EU companies to go f themselves and then having no local UK choice, going back to the EU companies. What makes it plausible is the defiant, mocking attitude the UK had immediately after Brexit. I remember Farage organizing an event right on the day the UK left the EU, with people waving flags and celebrating. I remember the same Farage turning his back on the European Parliament and defiantly waving flags with his MEPs. So, it seems plausible many in the UK would have felt Brexit as vengeance against Europe and would have felt sure of themselves to tell Europeans what they really thought of them. Remember the "EU rats out" stuff? That's a summary of many Brits' feelings towards us (Europeans). So, I can see how it could happen.
@@octavianpopescu4776oh high & mighty
The EU is in economic decline though 😂
@@jayc342009entire world is but have you seen the vid? Plant closing in the UK? That looks so much worse.
There must be crazy close in this mill down, I don’t think there’s ever been a time where we’ve needed to manufacture around steel products more….. I was privileged to live in South Wales for a few years before moving north and use the past this incredible industrial site regularly.
I’m sorry for all those involved in the uncertainty that it brings ….
"Its only Wales, they don't vote for us anyway, none of them send us "Donations" so fuck Wales"
--Tory Toffs
😂
Incorrect! Look at the colour of the electoral map at the last election in 2019.
Wales is almost entirely Blue!
The Welsh also voted clearly for Brexit.
Now the Christmas that the turkeys voted for has arrived.
Absolutely no sympathy for them and only contempt for what their stupid votes have cost the rest of us! I will never forgive them and they royally deserve every bit of misery that now befalls them!
Wales gets billions from central Government. Unfortunately the complete idiot Drakeford splashes this on bonkers projects - airport, 20mph limits etc. perhaps look at the guy running your country.
Great reporting Ava!
Build
Back
Better
Brexit
Bollox
Bluster
Bullshit
Barmy
Cleaner furnaces result in less workers
@@bfc2155no furnace equals no workers.
It was a breezy Brexit promise @@bfc2155that we'd have a protected steel works.
Another lie. They just keep coming
😂😂😂😂 exactly. Btw Germany has 26 operating steelworks.
Your question of why 3000 jobs at risk and why is a town in Wales on the verge of collapse is simply answered.
We sold it to foreigners who have no duty to help the UK especially, which is right. Their duty is to make as much profit as possible.
Were is true that steel was Britain's diamond product then this would not have occurred.
Manufacturing is not valued in the UK, banking is. Banking allows the creation of money out of thin air.
However, since the Great Financial Crisis, UK banking is in trouble too and the government has not wasted any time in allowing new entrants in to the field.
We appear to be in danger of few jobs that the masses can do and be paid well.
A small number of people in well paid jobs like pharmaceuticals, computer programming etc., and the masses will have to compete for multiple gig economy jobs delivering pizzas and driving Ubers.
None is going to buy British produce because it is all ready too expensive so you either have to make something at cheap which is not economically viable or focus even more on your domestic service(s) industries which can't be simply copy pasted abroad or something that doesn't use resources or is labour extensive. There's a reason Western countries mostly have luxury goods produced at home, sorry.
I watch a lot of your videos but it hits different when its your own part of the the UK. Thank you for paying Wales attention. Swansea tidal lagoon and the lack of funding could make for an interesting video in future. Keep up the good work, to the whole Politics Joe team.
Simple answer is we cannot compete with cheaper steel from India and China. Also both countries do not have restrictions on environmental pollution compared to the UK. Also the Welsh government closing down all the coal mining pits and open cast due to environmental concerns that supply the steel industry in Port Talbot with the vital coal to produce the quality steel.
This is not all Brexit’s fault as so many people on here assume, blame goes to equally to the UK and Welsh Governments, cheaper competition from outside Europe and our insane zero emissions policies (UK produce’s only 2%) that is hurting the UK and its economy. Welsh labour has run Wales for 23 years, under a labour and Tory UK government, is Wales better off…? NO!
I work in port talbot in the aberafan shopping centre and you can already see the effects of the looming redundancy
Or is it that Tata has a memory of England squishing Indian steel? ("Inglorious Empire").
Cymru needs independence because it is evident that Westminster never has and never will give a ffyc about us. The closing of the blast furnaces is but another example as to this. The only time we ever get mentioned is to be belittled, but its nice to get the attention [even when its too little too late]. The reality is alot more grim that what you know or report - and I'm from the area. The amount of damage Rishi Sunak and the preceding Tories before him have done... so much damage to each part of this nation state - not just my nation of Cymru - its beyond measuring. I would be happy to see anyone else step into the steelworks other than Tata - even if that means nationalising it as an asset - same as I'd like to see anyone but the Tories in Westminster.
The Tories have destroyed our beautiful Wales, one town at a time. I'm sick of always being either completely ignored, or openly derided. I came back to Wales last year, after a decade of living in Newcastle in the Northeast. I was shocked at how run down and tired everywhere is since I returned, it's absolutely heartbreaking. We desperately need our independence.
Welsh independence 😂😂😂
@@b62boom1I'd imagine Wales (like everywhere else) has been destroyed because of the endless waves of third world immigrants (which this channel supports)
Cymru doesn't vote blue (by and large) therefore there will be no help coming from the Tory shires! They will gladly inject despair, addiction and depravity into Welsh communities for having the temerity for seeing through their vile lies.
@@christophersmith8990if Scotland were to have a referendum right now on independence, Scotland would 100% leave the uk. This is because they are upset with the Tories dragging them into issues they aren’t given the power to control such as Brexit, mismanaging govt funds and resources and crumbling public services.
Id imagine Wales feel the same way
Great report. Thank you
Thanks for covering this
I’m from Melbourne Australia. Our leather industry heavily relied on leather tools made in England by Dixon. Dixon closed down about 10 years ago. The Chinese tools are not the same
Brexit mate. Sunlit uplands innit
Redcar steelworks closed in 2015, when Britain was a member of the European Union.
@@davidpryle3935 Falacious non-sequitur.
@@davidpryle3935It closed because of falling steel prices!
You forgot the unicorns they told me sunlit uplands and unicorns 😂😂😂😊
In 2022, India received $1.74 billion in foreign direct investment (FDI) from the UK.
£500m paid to TATA What for? Rishi.
Now tell me how much fdi u got from india in the same year 🃏🃏
TATA chemicals investing 5 billion dollars in building battery manufacturing plant 😂
The hypocrisy of you lot is never surprising.
51 billion dollar as fdi from India in uk
great doc guys
The podcast is great but the recent videos from around the country have been excellent!
The end of British manufacturing happened initially when we could no longer compete globally with emerging economies.
The final blow has been selling it all off to the highest bidders - British steel, owned by an Indian mega-corporation.
It's a foolhardy move to let it go, that's for sure, it means that Britain will no longer be able to manufacture its own steel from raw materials.
It will be greatly regretted in decades to come.
The knock on effect here is scary.
What is our gov yoing to save the plants jobs?
It will devastate the area......
Nowt
If not for TATAs port talbot would have closed 10 years back...They had no other alternative after UK government stopped support
Thanks for the video insight, Ava + co.
The guy in the red Burghaus totally nails it down.
The hypocrisy of government drives me crazy. In 2008 we had plenty of money for all the banks and insurance firms.
12:47 The Red Coat Guy. “They’re from a different ilk” that’s an understatement. They’re from a different reality with no ability for empathy.
Fantastic reporting
Unfortunately many of the steelworkers voted for Brexit and now its taking their jobs.
The same happened at Honda in Swindon. Thousands affected there too.
The Tory’s convinced people with well paying regular jobs that their enemy was the people struggling with less than them, not the rich vultures circling above them.
Garbage, they are moving their industry to India, cheaper labour, all the funding they got was used to build new furnaces there, being in the EU would of made no difference. Also the mad rush to move to net zero is moving the issue else where not fixing the issue this has gone on for ages.
This was always going to be the outcome of Tata steel's acquisition of British Steel in 2019. The fact that BEIS allowed it to go bankrupt and then allowed an internationally based company to acquire the plant was insane at the time, this isn't just a failure of this government but a structural crisis of Conservative economic policy
Thanks Ava. Thava.
Get this, Tata are going to open more blast furnaces in India. Twice the size of the ones in Port Talbot. The reason they are giving is because of net zero. The same exact thing India aren't really signed up to. We need to get out of net zero. At least here we can monitor any emissions...
It never ceases to amaze me how the working class in the U.K. vote against their own interests. I’m lucky to be pretty comfortable financially now but I have always voted for the party that cares a bit more about community than the Tories. Anyway… at least we got our country back.
I'm surprised how factory and business owners read the Telegraph and think the closures of their businesses are rational. My dad did it after reading The Times. His HP finance business had to close because so many customers in cheaper parts of inner London got poor after 1979.
I'm just looking for somewhere to post and might post again somewhere:
High interest rates are meant to cut inflation by cuttting demand.
High interest rates raise the price of the currency and close factories while voters feel good as though things are going well, and everybody is told that things are going well.
Anyone can google "Monetary Policy Transmission" to see a diagram. It is usually the bottom line of arrows which nobody looks at.
Every political party including Labour and Liberal have taken-on this textbook-diagram idea without giving an XYZ about the consequences of closing UK manufacturing and relying on China.
I have had a few glasses of wine. It is quite late. I had better stop typing!
You got your country back?
From who? Who took it away?
Scotland and England including the whole of UK is run by Asians.
When the steelworks in Corby closed, the area was designated an enterprise zone. The land was made cheap and there were lots of grants from the EEC ( the forerunner to the EU) for new businesses to set up. It saved the town.
Grants for low paid jobs that don’t help at all
The closure has nothing to do with global warming or green steel. It's simply much cheaper to make steel in India.
I was in Wales past summer. Great country. I loved it. People treated me very well. I hope that you can keep and develop your industry. I wish you the best. Regards from Puerto Rico.
I visited some friends in port talbot a few weeks ago, you can just tell by visitng the damn area how much the steelworks affects the local economy, considering it is one of the few major companies in the south wales area that produces on such a large scale it would have a massively negative impact on the economy, potentially crippling Port Talbot's ability to thrive.
Shameful, 13 years of conservatives, I never think it can get worse, then it does, every time. Short term Greed and impatience has ruined the economy, and frankly it's ruined and ruled this country for the past 13 years, get the tories out, get people in that actually care.
Making steel seems so inefficient with the big crane ladle crucible etc, I feel like they need to renew things, proping up old things leads to these situations.
Amazing piece. I had no idea and that's been really informative.
Conservatives have never been fans of industrial work which is baffling when we have closed our closest trade routes to get new products in
seeing this makes me think of 2016.. Wales voted overwhelmingly for Brexit. Wales received quite substantial EU funds for regeneration and support. It was absolutely absurd to me that after the referendum (and voting to cut off from a source of funding) they wanted guarantees that the UK gov would support. It's a consequence of your votes.. I'm sorry but choices have consequences.. this is one. Do you think Heinz or Nissan will stay (now they have to import steel). This is the freedom some of us voted for. :)
Wipe that sh*t off your face. This "freedom" was manufactured by Cambridge analytica and "project fear" accusation as confession. Citizens voting on foreign policy without due education has lead to vultures from all kinds of foriegn & multinational interest come swooping in to slurp the cracked egg of Britain off the pavement. This nation state no longer maintains ANY autonomy in the face of anarcho-capitalists. There's no way back & nothing for any ordinary upstanding fellow countrymen to smirk at. Funnily enough, (& not that their extremes are much better but) We have made russia and china our only true allies now, we just don't know it yet.
The sad thing is the areas outside of Cardiff who voted for brexit got the most out of “the club”, you can see it on the signage for roads and colleges! “Funded by EU” clear as day on them, but they fail to recognise it and expected Westminster to plug the gap which used to exist without issues.
_"Wales voted overwhelmingly for Brexit."_ - If 52.5% = 'overwhelming', I've got a bridge to sell.
His statement is correct if you look at the overall picture by councils
“Only five council areas in Wales voted to remain: Cardiff, Ceredigion, Monmouthshire, the Vale of Glamorgan and Gwynedd.
All council areas in the Valleys and in West Wales, apart from Ceredigion, as well as the local authorities in north-east Wales, voted to leave.”
Wales Online
@@fnfcgdcv15873 And 84% of Welsh speakers voted Remain, for what good it did. We can slice and dice the demographics however we like, but the Referendum was ultimately decided on the TOTAL number of votes cast across the UK, not on a constituency/region/country basis. With regard to the latter, Scotland actually contributed far more Leave votes to the final tally than Wales, despite voting percentage-wise for Remain.
Funny! The Tories were in power when shipbuilding and coal mining was ended. Now the Tories are in power when its steels turn. 🤔
I left school in 1979 I know where you are coming from the Slough industrial estate has collapsed. With war around the corner we need all the steel manufacturers as possible
I'd like the green peace guy to explain how someone at the Sharp end of something is protected at all?
As an Indian, this is giving me Nostalgia
About how Brits colluded and tried to kill Indian industries and trade relations?
As an Indian I am asking why??? 😅
It's just money, western labour is expensive to employ. Hence, why Tata have opened a new blast furnace in Kalinganagar, India to get cheap, ununionised manpower. It's a cheaper overhead.
India and China will both make up an even greater majority of the manufacturing eventually, the number of the population and land mass just mean it's a matter of time before they overtake the US.
Soon to be replaced with a tasteless housing estate full of slap up, overpriced, plastic properties. I can see it now... 'Steelworks Close'.
Ava repping her dad’s dressing gown at the start? Looks sublime!
The end of British manufacturing goes back very far. From my own experience in the 1970s, I vividly remember the abysmal quality of British management, the decision makers jobs occupied by incompetent and lazy individuals, whe felt entitled to their position and were very happy to disregard the interests of the company.
15:03 Farage has the cheek to talk about "strategic madness for the country"!!!
Lawr y lon is a common phrase in the north. Well over 2/3rds of the people I grew up with had to move away to earn a living, if your reading this and your from england and you know welsh people; or work with them, you have to know that they have had to leave their friends and family because of how forgotten welsh industry is. Atleast before brexit there was large scale infrastructure investment from the EU which recognised how under developed wales was. Is there any wonder that Welsh Independence is poling at 30%!
It's not just Wales that's been forgotten though is it? South Yorkshire coalfield for me, we lost our industry too.
The problem is that South Wales, apart from Monmouthshire, Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan all voted Leave. My girlfriend is from Brynmawr, she voted Remain, but is mystified as to why none of the people she knows there did.
As everyone said to me when my business collapsed during covid, “they can retrain and just get another job with amazon or pick fruit, plenty of other jobs out there”. In all fairness this had been on the cards for 2 years since the energy prices went up! It cost half price abroad so it’s a no brainer that anything with high nerdy usage is going to cost a fortune to make! Cheap energy equals cheap goods!
I worked in the Welsh steelworks for the best part of 35 years ie port talbot working on heat exchangers as a sub contractor it’s a shame
Vote Con, get duped.
My people in the valleys and south Wales are the salt of the fucking earth, the warmest most generous people you could meet, and they know exactly what's going on politically too. Kills me to see what we've been put through over the years to this very day
Heartbreaking 😢
Person from Consett here: it gets better after the closure, but it takes at least a decade.
Despite the persistent fog of melancholy and the suffocating deprivation that has trademarked South Wales for the past 40 years, the spirit of its people never fails to shine through. Their resilience is a beacon.
"Neoliberal globalization takes space and opportunities away from people, subordinating them to global networks of capital: it contributes to an accelerated exchange of goods, and thus establishes wide-ranging sociospatial subordination to hegemony power ( Harvey, 1985a ). Within this economic and political process, physical space tends to be treated as a mere support, an infrastructural platform for the development of productive and service activities that temporarily exploit geographical positions, only to soon abandon them and move to other locations more profitable in terms of labour costs, workers’ rights, antipollution laws, taxation,"
Thank you Ava and PolJoe for shining a light on the lives affected by this potential action. Genuine question- does Sunak or his family have any financial interests in Tata?
Almost certainly. Tata Group is one of the most successful companies in India and Sunak's father-in-law is a billionaire and one of the richest people in India.
Byt C02 is essential for plant growth.
Few days ago in my ancestral house in Howrah, West Bengal,India (175 years old) we found some old beams where we found an inscription saying "Frodingham Steel & Iron". Those beams came from England and now we see the downfall of such industry.
Really good video. Normally watch politics Joe mostly for the banter, but this was really good investigative journalism on a topic I didn’t know much about
Does Sunack and Co have shares in Indian steel