Brexit

[NorthernRaider]

Spot on correct steve, the Tories and their free markets , what they actually did was realise British Steel like British Leyland and British NCB was losing money hand over first. So on Coal mining they expanded on Labours closure of loss making pits, and flogged off the remaining profitable ones . (I always thought a shared private/ state cooperative would have been better) The flogging off of the gas, elec and utilities was just criminal in my opinion it did not benefit the country at all. Then EU Green taxes hit many UK mines that did not produce the higher quality types of coal that were demanded.

Leyland was a basket case and not worth saving. I worked for Unipart for a couple of years and often visited the BL plants, they were still living in the 1950s with their attitudes ( workers and bosses)

Shipyards we had too many since the Japs, Indians, Koreans started making ships, quicker and cheaper than us. BUT and this is important WE NEED a domestic ship building industry as part of the nations defence policy, most people said we needed about EIGHT or so. BUT the EU also said EUROPE had to many shipyards and ordered the closure of all of them around here Tyne, Wear and Tees and many other in order to protect the manufacturing in Italy and France which was even less profitable than ours.

Steel was outragous on all counts, most of the plants were loss making, AND grossly overmanned, but we did make some progress in getting rid of the clapped out plant and reigning in the unions, So for example CORUS REDCAR plant was a fabulous facility, well ran, good non militant workers and sold off. but EU GREEN tarrifs hit it hard so the ENERGY costs rose alarmingly. THEN the EU forbade us from providing discounted or cheap energy to the steel works (whilst French and German plants got round the ban) and the energy costs made CORUS Redcar a loss maker.

LABOUR did nothing to save it that why the Labour MP lost her seat as thousands lost their jobs.

But then the nasty evil capitalists of SSI re-opened the plant and got everyone back to work for another 4 years, but AGAIN EU rules and Energy costs added to Chinese steel being allowed to be dumped by the EU killed it off again, and this time the TORIES did nothing.

A similar economic disaster has been happening in Port Talbot and Scunthorpes, Energy costs because of EU green taxes, Chinese Dumped steel and the EU stopping us from providing cheap energy has devastated those plants and communities.

But again the private sector reckons it can save Port Talbot with this £400 million buy out and save the welsh plant, pity they could not help Redcar when neither Labour nor Tories could save that.

FISHING. When we joined the EU we lost control of our seas and Spanish mega trawler fleets devastated our waters fish stocks, which also led to 50,000 UK onshore and offshore job losses. The EUs response was to limit catches but mainly to the remaining UK vessels which saw us throwing fish overboard not to break the levels the EU set. Neither Labour nor Tories did ANYTHING to protect our fisheries.

The EU does not benefit the core working classes of the UK.