Just days after Britain’s right-wing party Reform won a huge number of local government seats in Lincolnshire, home of the UK’s last remaining coal-fired steel mill, Keir Starmer’s Labour government announced it will bring forward legislation to nationalize British Steel. But rather than save the mill and Labour’s remaining votes in the region, the move puts thousands of jobs at risk.

British Steel has been in financial trouble for the past half decade. The ailing firm was bought by the Chinese steelmaking company Jingye Group in 2020. But despite a range of government financial incentives, Jingye claimed they were unable to run the mill profitably, losing around £700,000 a day. In 2022, the then-Conservative government entered into negotiations with Jingye Group to support the transition from coal-fired blast furnaces to electric arc furnaces, to ensure legal climate targets for decarbonization were met.

Despite multiple rounds of negotiations, including a final government offer of £500 million in March 2025, the two sides failed to reach an agreement. In response, Jingye announced plans to shut down British Steel’s two remaining blast furnaces at the Scunthorpe Steelworks. The direct threat of an immediate operational halt triggered the government to step in with emergency legislation in April 2025 to take control of the site and keep the blast furnaces running.