Is this the end of British manufacturing? 

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.

This country is a total dump. It’s just broken on every level.

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.

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.

British steel is a matter of national security. Britain can't rely on supplies of steel from increasingly hostile BRICS nations. Should there be a war and Britain not be able to manufacture steel that is an unacceptable strategic disadvantage.

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.*

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🤔 ?

Governmental incompetence and short term greed. What have they done to my country?

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?

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.

Labour should immediately commit to reversing this decision by nationalising all strategic industry and reconstituting those firms as employee managed, socially owned cooperatives.

52.9% voted for this . Everyone was warned and most politicians classed that as scaremongering

Can’t wait for Keir to come out and say Labour will “look closely” at the closure then do absolutely nothing about it.

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.

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

Regards from India, Yr erstwhile colony, one of the largest current steel manufacturers in the world. Namaste

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.

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.

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.

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.

Never in the field of human history has so much been thrown away by so few in such a short time!

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!!

The taxpayer is buying the electric arc furnace for TATA. Isn’t private enterprise wonderful ?

Remember Consett, Corby, Scunthorpe and Brymbo ( Wrexham ). This is just the end of a sad story of low investment and ultimate decline !!

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.

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.

As an Indian, this is giving me Nostalgia

We need more of this type of journalism

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.

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......

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?

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 🇬🇧?

I sympathise with those who didn't vote for Brexit or BoJo, the others are getting what they wanted.

The guy in the red coat spoke so well about this situation! Really feel for the port talbot steel workers and the area

That bacon, egg, sausage monster looked incredible o,o

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 😂

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!

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!

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.

The employees were warned about brexit, Wales was being supported by EU developments. But no, they thought the Tories were wonderful.

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.

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.

In all fairness one of the best explanations of what Steel means to Port Talbot and what the community is facing

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.

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.

"Its only Wales, they don't vote for us anyway, none of them send us "Donations" so fuck Wales" --Tory Toffs

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

The current crop of tories just continuing where Thatcher left , my grandfather said then never ever ever vote Tory

"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.

Brexit mate. Sunlit uplands innit

Boomers destroyed British Steel like everything else.

Funny! The Tories were in power when shipbuilding and coal mining was ended. Now the Tories are in power when its steels turn. 🤔

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.

Thanks for covering this

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.

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. :)

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 ….

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

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

The podcast is great but the recent videos from around the country have been excellent!

Thanks for the video insight, Ava + co.

Great reporting Ava!

Thanks Ava. Thava.

Or is it that Tata has a memory of England squishing Indian steel? ("Inglorious Empire").

Build Back Better Brexit Bollox

The closure has nothing to do with global warming or green steel. It's simply much cheaper to make steel in India.

Great report. Thank you

In 2022, India received $1.74 billion in foreign direct investment (FDI) from the UK. £500m paid to TATA What for? Rishi.

If not for TATAs port talbot would have closed 10 years back...They had no other alternative after UK government stopped support

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.

The hypocrisy of government drives me crazy. In 2008 we had plenty of money for all the banks and insurance firms.

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.

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...

I work in port talbot in the aberafan shopping centre and you can already see the effects of the looming redundancy

Soon to be replaced with a tasteless housing estate full of slap up, overpriced, plastic properties. I can see it now... 'Steelworks Close'.

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 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.

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,"

No Tory is bothered

great doc guys

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

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

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

The knock on effect here is scary. What is our gov yoing to save the plants jobs? It will devastate the area......

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

Vote Con, get duped.

So sad that a Brit invented modern steel and now we won’t even be making it. British steel used to be known worldwide as a byword for excellence. How low we’ve gotten……..

No Conservative government has ever supported the manufacturing sector in my opinion. The policy has always been to outsource to other countries. Always at the expense of working people in these areas. The policy also of privatisation has not done us any favours. Especially when one considers that many industries and sectors like gas , water , electricity are all foreign owned. We have lost control of these vital sectors and that has put this country in a very vulnerable position.

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?

Some Indian entrepreneurs also destroyed Nigeria's steel Industry. Ajaokut and Delta Steel in Nigeria were run into the ground despite Nigeria's bank loans and subsidies. Nigeria recently paid $500 million to Pramod Mittal to release his control of one of the steel plants. India is developing a new market for its steel exports.

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!

Well, the Welsh Assembly will be thrilled to see the carbon emissions in its jurisdiction reducing in line with the “fantastic” Net Zero policies and objectives. The damage to real people with real homes and real families to provide for will be catastrophic. Farting around on a bicycle delivering junk food to lazy slobs isn’t going to cut it for the men at Port Talbot or the associated supply chains. The U.K. economy is like the Norwegian Blue parrot in the Monty Python sketch: it’s dead, it’s rolled down the curtain and joined the choir invisible. All successive governments have done is bang in a few more nails to keep it on its perch. This is an ex 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%!

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.

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.

Possibly the best edited video to be uploaded to the PoliticsJOE channel.

UK reminds me of our current Swansea City Owners we always sell our biggest assets. Britain have been doing this for decades. Everything’s gone the Fishery’s in Grimsby the Shipyards in Sunderland you name it it’s gone. Automotive in the UK is a shambles aswrll. I was made redundant back in april 2023 from a car parts factory that relocated to main land europe. Honda In Swindon went Ford closed down in Bridgend. Decent jobs in south wales and around Britain have been declining for decades.

15:03 Farage has the cheek to talk about "strategic madness for the country"!!!