Scunthorpe fights to save steel industry

As negotiations between the government and British steel continue seriously, an excava community. BBC News Visit to Scunthorpe to talk to workers and their families.

British steel was used to make landing vessels transported to assault the beaches of northern France on day D, racing the way for the end of World War II.

Today, Scunthorpe has an air or a city that returns to a war; A community that struggles to keep coca ovens burning -with 2,700 jobs and their identity recorded in steel at stake.

But against a tide of 25% tariffs on steel exports to the United States, which enter into force last month, and the ongoing conversations between the government and Chinese owners of British Steel about the future of Scunthorpe Steelmaching, there is no feeling of defenseless.

“It’s stressful because it seems that it is out of our hands,” says Kerensa Smith, cradling his 10 -month -old Daughter Otilie. “Everything is out of balance right now.”

Every day, the workers archive fits a British steel welcome sign that says: build stronger futures.

For the Smith family and thousands like them, the future seems gloomy.

Keensa’s husband, Tom, has recruited his whole family in the fight to maintain work feeding the nation with steel. He is also secretary of the Branch of the Community Union.

We find the family, together with Tom’s father, Mark, downloading the Save Scunthorpe steel banners from a parked car near Central Park.

While Tom uses a deck to hammer on homemade signs, motorists who pass their horns.

With challenge in his voice, he declares: “We have some of the best steel workers in the world here. We do the best steel rating and each of us is passionate about that.”

The Steelworks, with their chimneys and fixed towers, close over the city, as it has done during generations.

Tom adds: “Iron mineral is the breock of this city. Each person in this city has some connection with it.”

The Government has sacrificed to buy coke coal that is essential to maintain steel production in Scunthorpe, as told to the BBC.

British Steel has warned that the raw materials necessary to keep the two underpants of their plant in operation are being depleted.

The sources said the government was putting the sacrifice to the Chinese owner of British Steel, Jingye, who will decide whether to accept it.

Unions say the situation is in a “cliff.”

Tom says: “They need to put aside their differential, make the raw materials here and keep us going.

“If we go down, we will be at the mercy of foreign imports and that cannot be allowed to happen.”

On the other side of the Atlantic, President Donald Trump said rates are needed to restore the United States manufacturing basethat he and his allies see as vital to protect national security.

Just although the movement threatens the future prosperity of industrial cities such as Scunthorpe, many here, especially those employed in Steelworks, according to reasoning.

Lee Porter, worker and cleaner at Steelworks, has composed a song in support of the Save Scunthorpe Steel campaign, and Trump’s rhetoric gives him an chord with him.

“I think he is right,” says Lee. “That is what we must do. We need to be more self -sufficient. It makes sense.”

Lynne Atkinson, a care worker and daughter of a former high -baked engineer, has started a Facebook campaign to call attention to the city’s fight to save the industry.

She believes that the loss of the main employer of the city will have serious ramifications for the security of Great Britain.

“There will always be wars,” she says. “It’s going to be left [Britain] completely open.

“If something happens, and we depend on the imports of China, for example, they would immediately put on the side of Russia and cut us and we would not have the way of making steel. I think it’s crazy.”

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