Letters: The Government, not the EU, is to blame for the fate of steel

These letters appear in the 2 April 2016 digital edition of the Independent

Steel plant at sunset. (AFP/Getty)

The lack of action to save the remnants of the UK steel industry beggars belief and demonstrates how in hock the UK Government is to the Chinese.Those in favour of Brexit will undoubtedly blame the European Union, but the blame should be laid firmly and squarely at the door of the Conservative Government, whose ineptitude on this matter beggars belief.

The biggest problem facing the sector is dumping by China of steel into Europe. One reason for this dumping is that many other parts of the world have put heavy tariffs on such exports.

The US, for example, has slapped 236 per cent on Chinese steel. Crucially, India has also introduced tariffs, with steel prices predicted to grow by 15 per cent in the country in the first six months of 2016 as a result. This has led to pressure being put on Tata Steel in India to pull out of the UK and focus on the growing domestic market.

The EU has not introduced measures to protect the steel industry because this is in fact opposed by the UK Government, which desires to generate positive trade links with China. Indeed, the Government did not seek EU permission for exemptions for steelmakers from green taxes until December, long after German steelmakers had acquired such breaks.

The Government instead prioritised securing subsidies for the Chinese-backed Hinkley Point nuclear project. Due to the cost over-runs for this project the French and Chinese partners have secured a unit price for energy more than twice that of the current market rate, the irony in all this being that the high cost of energy is one reason why the UK steel industry is unable to compete.

It is a strange world we are in that sees it as appropriate to intervene to bailout the insolvent banking industry at a cost of £1tn, but that somehow trying to salvage a steel sector, whose loss would see us become increasingly a plaything of international markets, is somehow acceptable.

Alex Orr
Edinburgh

Admiral Lord West has stressed the strategic significance of our steelmaking capacity, warning against losing self-sufficiency in building our future warships. But for those intending to vote in favour of remaining within the EU this must surely seem anachronistic. From their perspective, what matters for our defence and for our manufacturing industry is that steel continues to be produced somewhere within the EU.

Whether we in our corner of that union focus on earning a living from selling dodgy financial services and putting on displays of Morris dancing is of no great concern to them. We should not expect David Cameron’s government or the main opposition parties to see the withdrawal of Tata or the closure of the Port Talbot plant as other than a temporary local difficulty.

John Riseley
Harrogate

Something the media and politicians appear to have ignored is the impact these closures will have on Tata Steel’s customers. However many millions of tons of steel are produced in the UK, they are produced because someone somewhere needs it to manufacture something else and add value to the economy. Having a reliable supply at a known price is infinitely preferable to chasing the cheapest world price.

From the point of view of a Brummie metal basher, I would suggest that China has been waging economic warfare against the west for 30 years or more destroying our industries on a huge scale.

Jim Baker
Address supplied

Maybe Tata Steel should re-brand themselves as Tata Bank; then there would be no stopping the Government coming in to rescue the business.

Paul Armstrong
Workington, Cumbria

The Living Wage will lead to greater immigration from the EU

We can only celebrate the introduction of the new national living wage if Britain leaves the European Union.

As wages in the UK for low-skilled jobs are now so much higher than the rest of Europe, many EU citizens will chose to come here for work. This will put a further strain on our schools, hospitals, public services and housing stock.

Furthermore, companies in the UK often prefer to employ EU workers instead of British workers. This is because EU workers don't mind being exploited - such as doing extra hours without any notice - as their wages are so high to them.

Mark Richards

Brighton

The reason why we are in the EU is trade. We export our goods and services and we import EU goods and services and everyone should be better off. It is not working that way.

Every year we buy more from the EU than they buy from us and it is getting worse. In 2014 we purchased £62bn more from the EU than we sold. The total deficit over the 15 years to 2014 was £491bn. That was paid for by selling off our companies and investments and taking on extra debt. In addition we have to pay the EU membership fee which was £10bn in 2014. Roughly half our trade is with the EU and half with the rest of the world. Our trade deficit with the rest of the world over 15 years was only £30bn.

We are losing out in a big way from our membership of the EU. Although it will be an onerous task, we should quit the EU now, save the membership fees and negotiate new trade agreements. The EU must make concessions that will reduce the deficit in exchange for access to the lucrative UK market.

John Meins
Beaconsfield

I, like others who wish to leave the EU, have signed up for various campaigns that support this view. The Vote Leave campaign continually sends information several times a week explaining why we should leave the EU.

Most people like me, who have linked up with Vote Leave, are already converted. What a waste of time and effort it is sending this stuff to us all. The Vote Leave campaign is miles off the mark in informing those undecided voters with the truth and the facts.

The Freedom of Movement issue, for example, is simply not being addressed and exposed. The simple fact is that any one of 500 million EU citizens can regard this country as their own. Employment, housing, health, education and all other welfare and benefits are theirs by right on equal terms with UK citizens and voters. If this is not grounds to walk away from decisions politicians have made on our behalf, without a mandate of any kind, then l don't know what is.

Why are the campaigners for Leave not hammering away at the public? I believe they are too scared of being politically incorrect by sounding too nationalistic or critical of unlimited immigration. If the Leave campaigns want to win this referendum then they have no alternative but to be nationalistic and critical of unlimited immigration.

Kay Rowham
Easington Lane, Tyne and Wear

Did we have you fooled?

Nice try, Independent! After so-called Brexit, Scotland and Wales can easily communicate by land, sea and air as they do today. A better spoof would have been to focus on an independent England after Brexit, because then it would become Engxit with Scotland and Wales being deemed the successor states.

Imagine that spoof: repatriate HP sauce, that symbol of the House of Commons, from being manufactured in the Netherlands. Nationalise former English prestige car companies (RR and Bentley) from the Germans and Jaguar Land Rover from the former colonial Indians. Yorkshire pudding to be renamed ‘freedom pudding’. Warm beer and cricket on the common to become Olympic sports and mongrel English to be rid of its French and other loanwords through the new academie anglaise!

John Edgar
Blackford

Any good April Fool story should have an element of believeability to it. Mark Steel's story about Lambeth Council turning libraries into gyms is just too absurd. What's that? Oh....

Bill Collett
Wendover, Buckinghamshire

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