Inside the Reform circus at British Steel in Scunthorpe

Whether Farage’s sudden nationalisation move is simply a ploy to gain support from those desperate to keep their livelihoods or not, uncertainty around Scunthorpe’s industrial future still remains

I’ve been in Scunthorpe for no more than a few hours, interviewing workers and locals on the possible imminent closure of the town’s steelworks plant, when I get a tip-off that Nigel Farage is in town.

The Reform UK leader is holding a press conference at the Scunthorpe steelworks plant along with the party’s Deputy Leader Richard Tice MP, and Andrea Jenkyns, Reform’s candidate for Mayor of Greater Lincolnshire.

Their objective is to visit the UK’s last remaining steel blast furnaces and the workers who run them, before announcing Reform’s plan to save British Steel and the Scunthorpe community from a ‘bleak’ future - or rather, how they’d do it if they were the ones in charge.

The visit comes at a time when the future Scunthorpe’s industrial heritage hangs by a thread, after it was announced that furnaces at Scunthorpe’s steelworks plant could be just days from closure following the withdrawal of crucial supplies.

Jingye Group, one of China's leading steelmakers and multinational conglomerates and owners of British Steel since 2020, has said that the blast furnaces were “no longer financially sustainable” due to tough market conditions, the imposition of tariffs and higher environmental costs. Jingye has said it has invested more than £1.2bn into British Steel to keep the operations going, but that they have suffered financial losses of around £700,000 a day.

The recent developments have come as a shock for some of workers - for others a feeling of uncertainty about their jobs has continued for a number of years, with many taking steps to leave the company before what they call ‘the inevitable’ happens.

Just outside of the plant, I spoke with one worker in a senior management role who was warned about job insecurity on his very first day almost 30 years ago.

Outside British Steel’s reception, a red Jingye flag floats above as Farage, Tice and Jenkyns exit the building towards a group of journalists and cameras. Their solution?

The government must nationalize Jingye’s UK business within the next 3 days.

Additionally, they call for Scunthorpe’s two blast furnaces to be retained and refurbished, and for the two Electric Arc Furnaces from Liberty Steel Rotherham to be acquired.

Following his tour of the plant, Farage claimed with urgency that there are "three days left to get the orders in" of raw materials to keep Scunthorpe's blast furnaces running beyond mid-May, and if an agreement could not be reached, it would be "the end of steelmaking in our country".

The Scunthorpe Steelworks Pic: The Lead

I asked Mr Farage what, on a local level, the future of Scunthorpe looks like without its steelworks.

He said: "Bleak. Very, very bleak. A lot of these people are highly skilled, well-paid people. That’s a lot of money in the local community. It’s 2,700 people, it’s a lot of people”.

Nigel Farage and Andrea Jenkyns outside the British Steel site in Scunthorpe

Andrea Jenkyns, Reform’ Greater Lincolnshire mayoral hopeful who had also just completed a tour of the plant, buttressed Farage’s pessimism with a little more emotional buoyancy.

She said: “They’re fighting to keep it open. We’ve been speaking to some of the workers in there, some of their families have been here for generations, and this is part of them. It’s part of their family, part of the community, and if Labour let them down… I’m so pleased Nigel and Richard are here, because this shines a beacon of light to the Labour government. They’ve got three days to save it.”

During a press huddle, Farage was critical of Keir Starmer’s handling the nation’s industrial trade, noting that the potential closure of Scunthorpe’s steelworks, the closure of Port Talbot’s steelworks, and the closure of Scotland’s only oil refinery, Grangemouth, were all events taking place under a Labour government, despite acknowledging that the Conservatives were “the authors originally”.

He said: “I don't think that we should have overseas ownership of our critical national infrastructure, whether it's our electricity network, our gas network, our nuclear power stations. Scunthorpe is a piece of our critical infrastructure. It should be British owned, British run British workers creating growth and opportunities here in Lincolnshire. We've got the opportunity to bring back the two electric arc furnaces sitting idle in Rotherham.

“Make them part of this merge business and then really go for long term procurement contracts on the materials coming in, long term sales contracts on the output. It's a great opportunity, but it requires vision and leadership. Now we're putting forward the ideas to the government. Let's hope they listen to us as they've listened to us on various other policies and go for it.

“I think that Starmer's problem is they are hopelessly ill equipped to run the British economy. 25 men and women in the British cabinet, not one of them ever worked in private business [...] The fact is the domestic economy is falling off a cliff. We’d be in a recession now if it wasn’t for mass immigration propping up GDP numbers and excessive government borrowing. Starmer is overseeing families getting poorer and how he can even stand up and keep a straight face and say we’re putting money in people’s pockets. And all of this before any ruptions that came from America”.

Asked what his message to Trump is regarding the steel tariffs his administration placed on Britain on March 12th, Farage deflected onto aluminum tariffs before confirming Trump is engaged in a big commercial war against China.

Farage said: “He[Trump] believes they have stolen American technology, undercut American interests, used slave labour - a list as long as your arm. I think many other countries have got caught in the crossfire of that. I still firmly believe that we are the one country that can not only just get out the tariffs, but actually negotiate a sensible free trade deal. That will mean compromises on both sides”.

Hannah was in Scunthorpe exploring the future of British Steel, as part of our commitment to in-depth news and features across the North of England. Subscribe below to ensure you receive her full report direct to your email.

In the hours since Reform’s announcement, Whitehall sources revealed that British Steel could well be brought into public ownership in the coming days, suggesting ‘all options’ are on the table as Starmer and Reeves are aligned in seeing steel as of ‘huge strategic importance’.

But while nationalisation seems to have become more and more of a possibility, not all steelworkers share Reform’s proposed view that utilising Electric Arc Furnaces (EAFs) is the solution. Opposition to the move towards electric arc furnaces stem from concerns that this will also result in significant job losses in the industry - EAFs rely on recycled scrap steel and are less labour-intensive than traditional blast furnaces which process iron ore. As a result, EAFs symbolise a shift away from traditional steelmaking, and a loss of specialised skills and expertise in the field.

Others struggle to forget that just last month, all of Reform UK’s MPs joined the Tories in opposing Labour’s employment rights law, despite polling showing that the bill was highly popular in Reform’s own constituencies.

Ultimately, Farage and his commons contingent voted against new reforms that would result in banning exploitative zero-hour contracts and day-one access to sick pay.

Trades Union Congress (TUC) General Secretary Paul Nowak responded to Farage’s refusal to support the bringing about of basic protections for millions of workers across the country by declaring him a “political fraud” who by “defying his own constituents to oppose stronger workers’ rights” was “not on the side of working people.”

Whether Farage’s nationalisation announcement is simply a ploy to gain local support from those desperate to keep their livelihoods or not, uncertainty around Scunthorpe’s industrial future still remains.

About the author: Hannah is a journalist, writer and documentary producer focusing on social issues, world affairs, culture, and investigations. She has written for the i Paper, Dazed, The Face, Screenshot and the Islington Gazette, and has developed current affairs stories for broadcast, including an investigation into one of Britain’s biggest child abuse scandals.

At The Lead we keep a close eye on Reform, and what Farage has to say. From calling out their rhetoric around the education sector to exploring why a number of East of England coastal towns went light blue, and why the split in the Reform party was inevitable. You can support our watchful eye on Reform and more progressive writing about the future of Britain by becoming a paid subscriber to The Lead and supporting in-depth, independent journalism.