This latest British Steel crisis isn’t all about Brexit

There’s a strong sense of déjà vu in this week’s steel crisis. The whole Brexit saga seems to have been bookended by trouble in what’s left of the British steel industry, beginning in 2016 when Tata of India announced plans to sell its entire UK steel business — the remnants of the privatised British Steel, later called Corus. The focus then was on the future of the blast furnaces at Port Talbot, but a buyer was found for the Scunthorpe ‘long products’ plant, at a price of £1, in the private equity firm Greybull Capital. Now 4,000 Scunthorpe jobs are at risk as Greybull prepares to throw in the towel: unless ministers come up with a last-ditch rescue loan, administrators were expected to be appointed by midweek.

And it will be all too easy to blame Brexit, but as ever there’s more to the story. Greybull — two French brothers and a Swede, investing family money from a base in Sloane Street — are the crew that also struck out as owners of the now defunct Monarch Airlines, and have dabbled in convenience stores and sports bars.