Tata’s Port Talbot decision goes beyond Wales and even steel

Tata Steel has confirmed plans to close the two blast furnaces at its plant in Port Talbot, south Wales, with the loss of up to 2,800 jobs. Photograph: Ben Birchall/PA

The crisis in the steel industry has been 40 years in the making, people were saying almost a decade ago during one of Tata Steel’s earlier panics about its losses in the UK. And it’s true that the forces of globalisation, Chinese dumping of steel on world markets, weak tariffs and punitively high energy costs in the UK are not new. On top, one can add the fresh imperative to decarbonise a polluting industry.

But the Indian-owned company’s decision to close its two blast furnaces at Port Talbot in south Wales contains a genuinely new feature. For the first time since the creation of the industry, the UK will be left without capacity to make steel from scratch.