Labour announces plan to nationalise British Steel after election defeat

Labour has announced it may nationalise British Steel following a ‘public interest test’. That’s after the Greens came second in the local elections when it comes to national vote share. The Green party received 18% compared to Reform’s 26% and Labour’s 17%.

Nationalising UK steel

Clement Attlee’s 1945 Labour government brought steel into public ownership, along with 20% of the economy. But Margaret Thatcher privatised steel in 1988.

The industry has issues nowadays, notably high energy costs and old infrastructure. Public ownership would deliver lower borrowing costs to invest in infrastructure, failing the use of debt free fiat currency.

Further, a government could deliver cheaper energy costs for steel through a publicly owned Green New Deal. Renewables are cheaper, while public ownership removes profit from an essential. And a Green New Deal stops inflationary pressure from volatile international markets.

What’s more, electric powered furnaces are established.

Labour: Public ownership is entirely possible…

Campaign group We Own It said:

So this government can nationalise. And they can do it quickly

Public ownership of steel brings about the question of why utilities cannot be nationalised.

We Own it also said:

Why, then, are we not announcing emergency legislation to bring our water into public ownership?

Labour claims that nationalising water would cost too much, at £90bn. But the privatised water industry funded that research. Ewan McGaughey, professor of law at King’s College London, has claimed that bringing the water industry into public ownership would actually cost nothing.

Indeed, we had water in public ownership in the 1800s. That’s how far neoliberalism—the ideology of privatisation, austerity and deregulation—has taken us into the past.

And it is ideology because public ownership of an essential is by definition more efficient than wasting money in profit. Whereas, management can be inefficient in either the public or private sector.

But it appears that Labour is feeling the pressure from the Greens and may bring about some nationalisations. All the more reason for the Greens to keep campaigning.

Featured image via Unsplash / the Canary

By James Wright

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