Can we chart a path to progress from the hypocrisy and ideological blindness of the recent past?
Welsh Communists argue that the belated intervention by the Westminster Government in the steel industry offers an opportunity which must be seized. The decision of the Labour Government to take some measure of control of British Steel and the Scunthorpe plant in particular has the potential to be a watershed moment.
Nevertheless, the Westminster Government’s decision to keep the option to nationalise British Steel open raises serious questions about Tata Steel in Port Talbot. Welsh Labour was scornful of suggestions to nationalise Tata Steel in the national interest and Starmer’s government set its face against this option in Cymru. Nationalisation is the correct approach to ensure Britain has the capacity to make virgin steel in the national interest.
There is well justified anger in Cymru where the same Labour Government has so recently allowed the blast furnaces in Port Talbot to be extinguished in a crushing blow to jobs and communities across the country. When the future of Port Talbot was considered we were told by Labour politicians that nationalisation was unthinkable and that the type of intervention, short of public ownership, that is now being delivered in England was also off the table. Just a few short months ago Labour politicians were still wedded to the Thatcherite dogma that public ownership and control is anathema and that there is no alternative to ruinous market capitalism.
It is with deep concern that we heard the words of Industry Minister, Sarah Jones, that the different approach was due to Tata’s willingness to invest in Port Talbot, and the changed global circumstances making it necessary to protect the UK’s primary steel-making capacity. The situation at Port Talbot is and remains a disaster and we need to continue to hold Tata to account for the devastation they have caused. They have failed utterly and completely and that is why a new approach is required.
The reference to ‘global circumstances’ is a disturbing euphemism too. The interests of the people of Cymru and Britain will not be served by war-mongering or an extension of the British arms industry.
Worst of all is the sickening, almost apologetic language used by Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds who appears to be doing everything he can to avoid progressing to the full-nationalisation of British Steel despite recognition that it is the most likely outcome.
In contrast, now that the facade has cracked we must take the sledge hammer to it. The steel industry is vital across Britain for the future sustainability and security of our manufacturing and energy production industries. What we require now is not the temporary bailout (forceful or otherwise) of a private concern designed to create private profit. We need an industrial strategy that joins together our infrastructure, skills and resources to meet public needs. In Cymru that means a steel industry capable of supplying the infrastructure we need for a revolution in green technology including the construction of renewable energy plant in the wind and tidal sectors.
Plans of this type can only be delivered by economic planning for the public good and through the public ownership of the necessary industries and enterprises that help realise it. Steel jobs and skills, and steel infrastructure need to be supported across Cymru and across Britain. This is what will ensure a sustainable future. The proposal from Plaid Cymru to extend the powers of the recent act to cover Cymru were well intentioned but what is really required is a general enabling act that will bring the powers to take enterprises into public ownership to both the Westminster Government and to the devolved administrations themselves including the Senedd.