The nationalization is not a ghost chasing British manufacturing

Digest opened free editor

Rola Khaleda, FT editor, chooses her favorite stories in this weekly newsletter.

The writer is a great lecturer in economic and social history at the University of Glasgow. His last book is “Country of Coal”

The future of the last melting ovens in the UK in Scunthorpe Stelworks is suspended in the balance. The closure will bring the British production to the two steel -making from the raw materials – to the end. Chinese Scunthorpe Maliki, Jingye, says that Lincolnshire factory is not viable. President Donald Trump’s tariff – and the world’s response – confirms the fragility of world trade. These are harsh winds that are now exposed to the remaining elements in the British steel industry.

In a sign of the seriousness of the situation, the ministers say they are ready to insure Scunthorpe, which employs 2,700 people. Keir Starmer, unforgettable, contrary to the previous Labor Party obligations towards public ownership and there is a few public funds to be spent.

But steel is the specified raw material for the industrial economy. If Britain wants to realize the manufacturing potential offered by Push for Green Energy – wind turbines both on the beach and outside, the equipment for solar farms and electric cars and storing the battery all depends on steel – then still needs steel production.

Perhaps it comes to public property – it was Parliament Remember For an emergency discussion this weekend on how to save Scunthorpe. But British governments on both sides of the corridor were excited about this issue for decades. The belief that privatization will provide superior economic performance is an article of faith and often depends on failure to understand both the purpose and intention behind previous public institutions. This makes the United Kingdom undesirable in Europe, where the country still has important industries.

It is also worth noting contradictory results for the privatization of the United Kingdom in the 1980s and 1990s: the entry of the Foreign State Corporation to the British economy. French, Irish, Danish and Norwegian governments have our wind farms. The Dutch state runs our trains. The Chinese government, through Petrochina, owns Greenjam, the oldest oil refinery in the United Kingdom.

yet nationalization It is still often seen as an old socialist ambition to control the “leaders of leaders” of the economy. When in 1995 Tony Blair emptied the constitution of the Labor Party “Item 4”, which he committed to the public ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange, it seemed to represent the end of these goals.

History reveals the practical principles of many previous nationalities – governments intervened to face the challenges that their own owners could not or not to meet. After the government of Clement, the workers’ Clement, coal, electricity, and railway in the late 1940s, followed the investment and modernization. The “Merry-GN-G” trains, which have been developed for this purpose, transport the new “SuperPits” coal to the giant power plants.

steel It was the most nationalized AtTlee government, which was reflected after the conservative general election victory in 1951. In this turn, the steel was very profitable and is very important for areas that cannot be operated from London.

By 1967, this changed. The steel, which needs a deep restructuring at that time, was transferred to a public ownership by Harold Wilson. The newly formed British steel was assigned to reduce the workforce and gave a relatively successful success in this difficult exercise. Contracting coal fields and steel industry areas have been supported. Investing in new industries such as manufacturing various labor markets.

Critics of Public Royal argument that government control over major national industries was an important engine for British decline in this period and should not be repeated. Public institutions are central companies in the mid -twentieth century. But it includes the “golden share” of the government in BP, in addition to the transferred general ruling that includes housing in transportation and council housing. Scottish water performance in investment and costs also stands positively compared to the monopolies summarized in England and Wales.

The performance of the steel sector because privatization now leaves Britain on the edge of the abyss to become the first major industrial economy without the ability to make steel from scratch.

Among the owners of Scunthorpe since 1988 is the Corus British-Hold Corus partnership, the Indian Tatta bloc, then Greybull Capital, a specialized investment group that buys troubled business, and finally Jenny. The devastating effects of being a peripheral manufacturer in a multinational world were in full view in recent weeks: Note Jingye’s lack of interest in The government’s offer at a value of 500 million pounds To maintain open scunthorpe.

In an economy that is newly not certain of the manufacture and provision of basic raw materials, as well as in trade, it is not bad that nationalization has now returned to the table.