The Labour government has a British Steel-sized problem that doesn’t look to be going away anytime soon. Sir Keir Starmer’s army took control of the production plant on Saturday after parliament was recalled in a rare move. Legislation was pushed through both houses to prevent the closure of the UK’s only virgin steel producer after Chinese company Jingye threatened to turn the blast furnaces off. But despite the whole affair raising questions about why a Chinese business had been allowed to control a crucial UK production plant in the first place, now industry minister Sarah Jones has suggested that the Labour lot is, er, not ruling out another Chinese owner for the company. Good heavens…
Speaking on Sky News this morning, Jones was quizzed about whether the government would disallow another Chinese business taking over the plant. Labour’s minister for industry admitted: ‘Well, we are not at the moment.’ Going on, she said:
I am not going to say yes or no to anything that isn’t at the moment on the table or being looked at.
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