MPs and peers from across Britain raced to Westminster on Saturday morning for an emergency recall of parliament to pass laws to save British Steel and its 2,700 jobs in Scunthorpe.
As they did so, the anxiety was palpable around the northern industrial town, 40km south of Hull in Lincolnshire. People in Scunthorpe weren’t just skittish over the steel jobs. They were also nervous about the football.
Scunthorpe United had a crunch match at home to Spennymoor Town. Meanwhile, down south, politicians debated taking control of the steel plant from its Chinese owner, Jingye, which seemed determined to shut it down.
The issue pricked at Britain’s growing restlessness about its national security, with the future of such a critical industry in the hands of a foreign superpower – the Scunthorpe plant is the only one left in Britain making essential “virgin steel” from raw materials. A backdrop to all of this was the growing political struggle between Labour and Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, which has emerged as a chief rival of the governing party in struggling former industrial heartlands such as Scunthorpe.
Football and steel are Scunthorpe’s two guiding lights. There is a symmetry between the town’s declining industrial fortunes and its football team, whose proud heritage is indelibly wrapped up in its steelmaking identity – Scunthorpe United is even nicknamed The Iron, its crest a fist clutching a steel girder. Yet the team and the town have both seen better days.
While the threatened steelworks on the edge of Scunthorpe in its heyday employed five times as many as now, as recently as 2011 the football team competed in the Championship, English football’s second tier, one level below the glamour of the Premier League. Now, after almost going bust, it languished in the sixth tier, the National League North. Victory over Spennymoor was crucial to keep The Iron a point ahead at the top of the league and its promotion push on track.
On Saturday early afternoon, there were clouds over the future of the steelworks but none over Glanford Park, Scunthorpe United’s ground next to a retail park two miles outside town. The Iron’s fans drank pints in the car park and basked in the glorious sunshine that has gilded England’s spring.
“Oh, I’m bloody nervous,” said Matthew Cook, an official with the Community Union who was handing out stickers and badges in support of the steelworkers. Over the football or the future of the steel plant? It would likely close unless the government took control from Jingye last Saturday.
“Both,” said Cook, although, with Westminster recalled, he seemed more sanguine over the steelworks. “Half the crowd today will be steelworkers. The debate today in parliament, with the government looking like stepping in: that’s the first sensible approach we’ve had in a long time.”
Before he worked for the union, Cook was in the steelworks. He started there aged 18, he said, to earn “pocket money” before going to university. He stayed 10 years and never started college.
“My brother and my stepdad are still on the steelworks. There are 3,000 jobs, but each supports four in the town. We think nationalisation is the only option. Whatever it takes, that’s what we need.”
As he spoke, two middle-aged woman approached Cook to take stickers. “My father used to feed the furnaces in the steelworks for decades,” said one of the women. “Everybody’s father did.” If a deal to save the British Steel plant at Scunthorpe could not be reached, its two furnaces, the last two in Britain making so-called virgin steel from raw materials, would go cold and could not be restarted.
At that moment, a march rounded the corner and into the stadium car park beneath the stand at the Doncaster Road end, the terraced stand that is The Iron’s version of the Kop for home supporters. The hundreds of marchers, members of the Unite union and their families, sang in support of the steelworkers to the tune of Here We Go: “Save our steel, save our steel, save our steel ...”
The Iron’s fans, some now well and truly lathered an hour before kickoff, welcomed them with applause and cheering. Waving Unite flags and a Save Scunthorpe Steel banner, the march ended at the far end of the car park.
Beauty salon worker Kerensa Smith stood around with the marchers and her baby daughter, Ottilie, on her chest in a harness. Mother-and-adorable-daughter posed for photographs in the sunshine clutching a “Britain – we need our steel” t-shirt.
“Ottilie’s Dad organised the march,” said Smith. “Scunthorpe would be a ghost town if the steelworks closed. There would be nothing left. I’ve been telling people: ‘Even if you think you are not directly affected, those steelworkers’ wages line everyone’s pockets in the town.‘”
As kick-off approached, nervous optimism filled the air. Scunthorpe United’s mascot, a giant rabbit named Scunny Bunny, cavorted with fans. Inside Glanford Park, also known as the Attis Stadium, fans munched pies as the teams lined out. Every square inch of the stadium, it seemed, was covered in ads from local businesses. But there were none from British Steel.
As news filtered through that MPs down south had voted to take control of the steel plant’s operations to ensure it survival – although it stopped short of full nationalisation – nerves on the pitch were also settled by an early goal for The Iron, as right-back Michael Kelly struck from near the edge of the box.
Down in Westminster, the House of Commons and the House of Lords passed in a few hours a law allowing Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary, to take control of the last remaining British Steel plant. This would allow him to order and pay for the iron ore and coke coal needed to keep the furnaces going – Chinese Jingye executives had been locked out by workers, who feared they might sabotage the plant. The government had grown frustrated at the increasingly unrealistic demands for big subsidies that Jingye had made to secure the future of the plant and switch to greener furnaces.
James Murray, a treasury minister, would later say that the UK government had been “negotiating in good faith with Jingye, but when it became clear they were accelerating plans to close the blast furnaces, we had to step in”. The suspicion in Westminster was that the Chinese wanted to end the UK’s virgin steelmaking capacity so that the country would become reliant on Chinese imports. Reynolds hinted that full nationalisation of British Steel would likely follow.
Back at Glanford Park, The Iron had grown sloppy in the second half, shortly after the union workers had marched on the field at half time. Home supporters in the 4,487 crowd grew restless as Spennymoor pressed for an equaliser.
But in the 88th minute, Scunthorpe substitute Carlton Ubaezuonu, who used to play for Dundalk, calmed nerves by stroking it into the net in front of the Doncaster Road end. Scunthorpe has had worse days: the steelworks was saved – for now – and The Iron’s league campaign was still on track.
Afterwards, in the town centre, the economic and social challenges facing Scunthorpe were obvious. The town’s dog-eared commercial heart, dominated by barber shops, pawnbrokers and charity shops, was almost deserted at 5.40pm on a Saturday. The only people hanging around seemed to be people with addiction issues and groups of what appeared to be recent immigrants of North African extraction.
The Tories under Boris Johnson flipped this seat from Labour in 2019, before Keir Starmer’s party took it back last July. Reform will mount a strong challenge in areas like Scunthorpe at the next election.
A 15-minute walk outside town at the British Steel plant, the Chinese flag still fluttered high on a pole outside the administration block at Entrance E, but surely not for long. Up the road at Gate D, workers gave waiting camera crews the the thumbs up as they drove in for the next shift change.
Scunthorpe’s steelworks, it seemed, had an immediate future once again. The long term script, however, was less clear.
