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UK to double steel tariffs to 50% to save plants from collapse
Chris Bryant, the trade minister, has rejected that suggstions that the UK plan of tariffs to help domestic steel production are reminiscent of Donald Trump’s policy.
As Bethan McKernan reports, the government is to double tariffs on Chinese and other foreign steel in a bid to save its remaining plants from collapse.
In an interview on Sky News this morning, asked if this was a Trump-style policy, Bryant replied:
It’s not very Donald Trump. It’s very, very specific.
Look, I believe I’m passionate about free trade, but it has to be fair trade.
And if you’ve got artificially low prices, completely pricing us out of the market, pricing British steel out of the market, that is a problem for us, because we need to have a sovereign capacity of steel in the UK.
Sadiq Khan says Labour should rejoin customs union and single market soon, and commit to full EU membership in manifesto
Good morning. Shortly before the general election in 2024, Keir Starmer said he did not think the UK would rejoin the EU in his lifetime. (He is now 63.) At the time he was loath to say anything that implied the Brexit vote was a mistake. More recently, Labour has been happy to talk about the economic damage done by the leave vote, and ministers want a closer relationship with the EU, but ruling out a customs union or single market membership remain firm red lines for Labour. And even more pro-EU parties, like the Liberal Democrats, are a bit vague about when full rejoining might be an option (not least because the last thing the Brussels probably wants is another half-decade of Brexit negotiations hell).
But today Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, is trying to shift the debate into a different space. In an interview with the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, he has said not just that rejoining would be good in principle (which is about as far as most pro-European Labour MPs are willing to go), but that Labour should commit to rejoining in its next election manifesto.
He is also saying that Labour should join a customs union with the EU, and the single market, during this parliament – even though the 2024 manifesto ruled this out.
He says:
I see on a daily basis the damage Brexit has done to not just London, but Londoners, the damage economically, socially and culturally. And I’m quite clear in terms of what needs to happen, which is I do think we should join the European Union …
So I think there should be a five-stage process in relation to this.
Number one, we should reset relations with the EU, and that’s done. Tick.
Number two, we should have closer alignment, and the chancellor this week has talked about closer alignment, sector by sector, and only diverge in exceptional circumstances.
So we basically have to take the next three steps that are incredibly important.
Step three, we should rejoin the customs union this parliament. Any trade agreement is less good than the customs union.
And then step four, we should rejoin the single market. We should try and do this during this parliament.
And then we should, as a Labour party, fight the next general election with a clear manifesto commitment, a vote for Labour means we would rejoin the European Union.
Khan also says, if Labour an election on a manifesto making this clear, there would be no need for a second referndum.
The chances of Starmer embracing this plan are close to zero. But that does not mean this is a totally hopeless intervention. Khan knows that Starmer won’t commit to rejoinining, but he is speaking out ahead of elections in London where Labour faces being hammered by the Greens in particular, in part because London voted remain and the Greens have been more anti-Brexit than Labour.
There is a wider point too; over time, policy debates shift and ideas once dismissed as absurd start to be seen as more realistic. (There was a time when a weird fringe party starting calling for the UK to leave the EU, and no one took them seriously.) Khan might be thinking long term.
Here is the agenda for the day.
10.30am: Kemi Badenoch launches the Conservative party’s local elections campaign for England at an event in London.
Morning: Wes Streeting, the health secretary, visits a vaccine rollout centre in Kent.
11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
After 11.30am: Yvette Cooper, the foreign secretary, makes a statement to MPs about international development spending. As Fiona Harvey and Jessica Elgot report, climate aid to developing countries from the UK will be cut by about 14% to roughly £2bn.
Noon: Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, unveils his party’s candidates and manifesto for Scotland.
Noon: John Swinney, Scotland’s first minister, takes questions from MSPs.
Noon: The Covid inquiry publishes its latest report, covering the impact of the pandemic on the NHS.
Noon: The Bank of England makes its latest interest rates announcement.
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