Nationalisation is no spectre haunting British manufacturing

Open the Editor’s Marking Free

Rulla Khalaf, the FT editor, chooses its preferred stories in this week’s news.

The writer is a senior teacher of economic and social history at Glasgow University. His last book is “a coal country”

The future of the latest explosion of the UK in Bearthorpe Steelworks depends on balance. The closure will bring British virgin steel production, steel from raw materials to the end. Scunthorpe’s Chinese owners, Jingye, say that the Lincolsh plant is flawless. President Donald Trump tariffs and the world’s answer, emphasizes the fragility of global trade. These are tough winds on which the remaining elements of the British steel industry are now subject to.

According to the gravity of the situation, the ministers say that they are ready to nationalize Scunthorpe, which 2,700 people are employed if necessary. Don’t forget Keir Starmer, reverse the earlier commitments to work towards public property rights and there is little to spend.

But steel sets raw material for an industrial economy. If Britain realizes the production potential offered by the pressure of today’s “Green Energy” – wind turbines both offshore and offshore, solar farms, electric vehicles and batteries all depend on steel.

It can still drop public property. Is the parliament recall This weekend to conduct an urgent debate on how to save Scunthorpe. But on both sides of the policy, the British governments have been drip for decades. Believing that this privatization will hand over a high-quality economic performance, it is an article of faith and often rests how to further public enterprises and intention. This makes the UK more distributing to Europe, where the state still has important industries.

It should also be noted in the 1980s and the paradoxic result of the privatization of Great Britain in the 1990s. The entry of a foreign state enterprise in the British economy. The governments of French, Irish, Denmark and Norway are owned by our wind farms. The Dutch state has launched our trains. The Chinese government, through Petrochina, professions, grant, the oldest oil refinery of the United Kingdom.

Still nationalization It is still seen as an outdated, socialist ambition to control the “commander-in-officers” economy. When in 1995

History reveals the pragmatic origin of many previous citizens. Governments take steps to apply to the challenges that private owners could not or did not meet. Investments and modernization followed by the late 1940s after the labor government of the Filement Atlie. Merry-Round trains developed for the purposes, made coal from the new “superpowers” to giant power plants.

Steel He was the most famous nationalization of the Government of Atlie, which reverse after the victory of the general conservative elections in 1951. The steel was very profitable at that junction and it was very important that it was very important for the regions.

Until 1967 this changed. The steel, then needed deep reconstruction, was adopted by Harak Wilson. The newly formed British steel was instructed to reduce the workforce and handle their relatives in this difficult exercise. Contracting Coalfields and Steelmaking regions are supported. Investing in the new industries, such as vehicle production markets of diversified workforce markets.

Critics of public property claim that the control of the Government of the Main Industry is an important driver of the British fall during this period and should not be repeated. Public enterprises are caricatized as the middle of the middle of the 20th century, centralized corporations. But they include the Golden Share of the Government in BP, as well as a developing public provision, which includes a transport and council apartment. In investment and expenses Scottish water performance is also a favorable compared to the privatized monopolies of England and Wales.

And the presentation of the steel segment, as the privatization now leaves Britain to become the first largest industrial economy without the ability to make steel from scratch.

Since 1988, the owners of Scunthorpe have been included in the British-Dutch Corus Partnersulip, the Indian Tata Conglomerate, then Greybull Capital, a specialized investment group, and finally JINGYE. In recent weeks, there have been fully viewed in recent weeks. Mention Jingye’s Lack of Interest Government 500 million pounds scuunthorpe to keep open.

In the Economy, which is mentioned in the production and supply of basic raw materials, as well as in trade, it is not a bad thing that nationalization is now returning to the table.