Farage Pledges to Reopen Welsh Coal Mines and Blast Furnaces and “Reindustrialise Wales”
Nigel Farage has declared that a Reform administration in Cardiff would reopen Welsh coal mines and blast furnaces and “reindustrialise Wales” to boost the British steel industry. The Telegraph has the story.
A Reform administration in Cardiff would be “very, very different indeed” to the current Labour one, Nigel Farage said.
He said that if his party wins power next May it will deliver a “huge cultural change” not only in Welsh politics but across all of Welsh life.
Turning to the steel industry, Mr Farage said Reform’s “ambition is to reindustrialise Wales” because the UK will need a lot of steel in the coming years and he believed it should be made in Britain.
He said Reform would bring back the blast furnaces at Port Talbot and would allow Welsh coal mines to reopen to provide the necessary fuel.
Mr Farage said: “I am not standing here and, no doubt some will lampoon this, I am not saying let’s open up all the pits. What I am saying is there is coal, specific types of coal for certain uses that we still need in this country and we certainly will need for the blast furnaces here that we should produce ourselves rather than importing it.” …
Reopening the steel blast furnaces at Port Talbot would cost “in the low billions”, Nigel Farage said.
Asked if he had priced up his plans, the Reform leader said: “We are going to need cheaper energy, we are going to need much cheaper local coal and we are going to need private business partners prepared to come into a joint venture with government to make it work.
“Yes it is going to cost in the low billions to do it and I am not even pretending it will be easy. But what I am saying is we are going to be using huge amounts of steel over the decades to come. We have to do everything we can to try to start thinking about being more self-sufficient.” …
He declared Reform UK can and will win power at the 2026 Welsh Parliament elections.
He said the party’s campaign “starts in earnest today” and declared: “Our aim is very simple. Our aim is to win. Our aim is to win a majority. And our aim as a party is to govern in Wales.
“And I believe that it is achievable.”
He predicted that Plaid Cymru would only do well in its “heartlands” and said the Tories were “dying” and “pretty close to an extinction event”.
Mr Farage said that Labour “really are failing in Wales” and the party in government had “nowhere to hide”.
He said: “I believe we can win and I believe actually if we get this right we will win next May.” …
Reform is currently polling second in Wales, behind Plaid Cymru, following the collapse of the Labour voter after last year’s election.
Analysis of polling data shows there may be around six Westminster constituencies on the south Wales coast that would fall to Reform if an election was held tomorrow — and all are former Labour heartland seats.
Around 40% of 2024 Labour voters say they will not vote for Sir Keir Starmer’s party in the Senedd elections next year. Of those switchers, most will vote for Plaid Cymru.
Worth reading in full.
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If there’s not much chance of winning, he can say what he likes, a cynic might observe. Trying to nationalise industries like that at by a devolved government is for the birds.
Here’s an idea. Why not leave business and industry to entrepreneurs and the market?
And politicians can focus their energy on keeping state bureaucracy out of the way and not putting unnecessary obstacles.
I was thinking the same thing. I’m not following this closely because decision time is a long way off, but Reform don’t seem to be heading in that direction. However they may still turn out to be the least bad, and worthy of support.
I am a proud capitalist, and believe that everything the state does, it does badly, so should stay out of industry.
However! There are some things – such as steel – that are so strategically important, the state should get involved. Incidentally, Farage is saying that the steelworks and mines would need private investment, no talk of full nationalisation.
It’s an interesting issue.
I understand the argument. But the question is where you draw the line and can you even draw a line?
What isn’t of strategic importance?
Energy? Transport? Food? Medical supplies?
If aviation is of strategic importance, does that make every component in the manufacture of planes of strategic importance?
The reality is that not every country in the world can rely on itself for everything of strategic importance. Not even a largish country like the UK.
I have more questions than answers in this regard. But I am almost 100% certain that Farage hasn’t thought about this much more deeply than this and that his comments are much more about sensing the direction of the wind.
I feel its something of a mindset that we are seeing. Even 50 years ago we were self sufficient in steel. We invented the stuff and have the resources here to make it in large quantities. What changed was that steel and mining became ‘yesterdays’ industry and we talked ourselves into a situation where we wouldn’t make it here, but buy it from countries who we can now see manage to make it, and make it economically viable. We have to contemplate having heavy traditional manufacturing here again, and stop hoping that the rest of the world will sell us what we need. It makes us vulnerable.
Food and farming is another one. We buy our strawberries from Egypt and our blueberries from Columbia, our green beans from Kenya. Reliance on these long supply chains again leave us vulnerable. We should rediscover what ‘seasonal’ means, and put our land to a better use than hosting fields of solar panels.
This new Reform policy looks like another shallow effort by a one man band. Of course, it’s a mindset from yesteryear. Tomorrow they will need to question where all that expensive Steel is destined. The Government could plan to build some ships to protect our fishing grounds when the latest fishing agreement with the EU runs out. 🙂
And is South Wales the best location for Coal Mining in Britain? I thought there was plenty ‘up North’, with easier Geology. Has anyone in Reform investigated the Geological arguments? Starting an industry, again, needs preparation, planning, even some Geological Expertise.
Easier wins would be keeping North Sea Oil and Gas in production, or at least, what is left of it: it would lower Carbon footprints as the transportation would be reduced. And continuing the test drilling of the Bowland Shale for Methane (Gas) would at least help plan the future.
Indeed. And wasn’t there a serious plan for a new colliery in Cumbria, which was shelved on account of the Zero policy?
South Wales is the largest continuous coalfield in Britain (1000 square miles) and has two of the best heat producing coals, bituminous and anthracite. Both burn very hot and clean. And there’s still plenty of it there.
Even half a century ago, iron ore was imported, although most things in the process were relatively local.
I agree the state should not be mandating that our land be used for solar panels or wind turbines.
But I don’t think it should be mandating that we use it to produce steel either.
Autarky is a nice idea but not if it means we have to ha e a centrally planned economy.
Central planning just doesn’t work well. Economies are way to complicated and so decentralised decision making based on market forces is much more effective. Not perfect, but by far the most effective way.
Also, central plannong puts power on the hands of bureaucrats who are largely unburdeed of the bad consequences of their actions.
“…. following the collapse of the Labour voter after last year’s election.”
I know they’ve lost popularity, but I hadn’t realised they were down to just one voter.
He obviously took the jab
The jab took him, you mean.
I initially thought you wrote ‘took a job‘.
😀😀😀
Damn you I came here to make the same observation.
Pointless if Nigel plans to just continue letting FOREIGN COMPANIES ASSET-STRIP THE BRITISH ISLES.
Notice how even Communist Fake Labour is making only hesitant, feeble moves to re-nationalise anything. That’s because the Globalists don’t want it— they want everything in the West to be owned by The Third World, to bring standards down to Third World levels and keep draining the very lifeblood out of Western Civilization.
Whatever the Globalists don’t want, that’s what we must do.
They aren’t going to do dick. As if that would even be possible. It is like Starmer talking about how he is going to reshape the economy into an industrial base for a war economy. At the most fundamental level very few British people have the level of physical conditioning required to work in industry and do you really think you will have people sending in their CVs for jobs in the tank factory. Same goes for mining and the rest of it. The vitality is gone. If you want to speculate on the future of the economy then it will be a rapidly growing disability based economy. Start humble. Lets see if you can build a public toilet because I strongly doubt that you have the nous.
It’s an emotional appeal:
Vote for me. I’ll undo what Thatcher did to you all those years ago.
I wonder just how many who have memories of working down the pit would now wish it on their children or grandchildren?
An old lady lives next door to me and she says “I hate that Farage, he is a nasty man”—–She is old so I wasn’t going to lecture her. So all I said was “What TV News do you watch Mary”?—–She replied “BBC”. —–There you have it. The State Broadcaster is shaping public opinion and the people are blissfully unaware.