Iron resolve: steel town unites to fight for its furnaces

Charlotte Brumpton-Childs, national officer for steel at the GMB union and a descendant of several generations of Scunthorpe steelworkers, said: “If we go to war with Russia, they’re not going to send us their pig iron, are they?” The government “fundamentally don’t understand the industry and the need for the ability to make primary steel”, she added. That idea makes some in defence circles nervous: a Royal United Services Institute report this year worried that becoming “the biggest economy by far worldwide to have no significant domestic steelmaking capacity” could harm security and economic resilience.