For Reform’s supporters drawn from the right of the Conservative party, Nigel Farage’s call to nationalise British Steel never made much sense. Why return Britain to the days of pre-Thatcherite Britain, when loss-making industries were propped up by the taxpayer as they gradually became less and less competitive globally?
Yet the political value of Farage’s policy has now become plain. With the government recalling parliament to pass emergency legislation to take control of the ailing British Steel – said by its Chinese owners, Jingye, to be losing £700,000 a day – Farage can now be seen to be leading Labour party policy. He has given a huge kick to a project that Reform will need in order to win an election: to start drawing large numbers of supporters from the left as well as the right.
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