Farage to pledge to 'reopen' Port Talbot steelworks

To reopen the heavy end at port Talbot would cost somewhere in the region of £3 billion. Why then would you use Welsh coal when it's cheaper coming from overseas. Also you wouldn't be allowed to export steel to the EU as it's made in an high CO2 way.

"Reopen the Tata Steel plant". How can you reopen something that isn't shut? Either the author or Reform are totally misguided on this - I suspect it is the London-based party, to be fair to the author. Farage will get his usual obsequious media attention today with his empty promises and smoke and mirrors routine but the people of Port Talbot, like the rest of Cymru, will hopefully see right through him.

And the next day he plans to turn gold into lead. Absolute donkey. Come on, stop feeding this stain on humanity. Their maths is woeful. How is his best mate in the US doing? The one turning the army out to shoot civilians?

Poster Boy...

Promises, promises. Where’s Reform’s Welsh Leader?

How does he propose to achieve re-opening the plant, given that the site is in private ownership? Surely this tribune of the right isn't suggesting nationalization!!

Unfortunately he will successfully tap into the anti labour sentiment festering in Port Talbot. People believe anything anyway. Just look at Los Angeles. No one to talking about the Trump/Musk feud anymore.

Bet you the HS2 £4bn the UK media won’t mention that the Greens and Plaid were calling for the plant to be nationalised to save the jobs.

Trouble is, because of Farage's pet project (Brexit), UK steel exports to the EU will now face additional import costs from 1st January due to the CBAM (Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism). If Tata continues producing steel in the way he suggests, there will be a significant price differential between EU-produced steel and UK steel (I am assuming he means reopen blast furnaces). As a result, demand will drop off, since UK steel simply won’t be price competitive. Espeically, Tata as faces direct competition from within Europe, particularly in building roof cladding, as well as packaging, and if I’m not mistaken, around 70% of their exports go to the EU. That leaves three options: pivot to EAF production (as decided by the company, and nigh on impossible to change now), close the site entirely, or rely on massive annual gvmt subsidies , at least until the UK Emissions Trading Scheme is linked with the EU's system. To be fair, that linkage was agreed in principle between Labour/Starmer and the EC recently, but it will still take years to formally be implemented. And let’s not forget, Farage wants to tear it up the new arrangements anyway!

Not true one bit. It's literally cheaper coming overseas. Stop with the bull.

I hear he has also promised to stop people being nasty, end world hunger and give every little girl her very own unicorn. What a lovely story.

You understand that renewables count as domestic sources of energy, right?

Let's not forget that it was his "Global Britain" project that sent steel jobs to India.

The man who insisted that leaving the EU would save the UK steel industry is now promising to save it from the impacts of the Brexit that he championed. His grift knows no bounds.

So Farage stirs the pot with stupid promises but where are the other parties who have been around a lot longer ? By now after 26 years of rhetoric and downright indolence we still have no clear sense of direction from a series of Bay regimes or their masters in Westminster. Clutching at straws and wondering where all that grant aid and other supporting funds went is not a good look. Our opposition parties are a sad mix of outright idealism on the one hand and colonial subservience on the other. Doesn't any of them have a sense of duty to the nation they claim to represent ?

Politicians will promise anything to get into power ..... until the time comes for action. This guy couldn't give a hoot about Cymru.

He's also pledged to ensure that all social housing in Wales goes to 'locals'. Make of that what you will. Answer: He apparently means anyone not born in the UK...

It's not closed. The heavy end is no longer needed as they don't make virgin steel.

Will he reopen Clacton? Sounds like nationalisation to me?

Stan Robinson, Voice of Wales, and his rusted blade will be made joint CEOs of the new operation! Dan Morgan Voice of Wales will be made CFO!

The point here is that steel-making in Port Talbot hasn't finished, as the article above makes clear, but is instead transitioning to an electric arc furnace. The steel market has changed significantly over the years with an increasing number of customers now specifying so-called 'green steel'. It's imperative that production changes to meet that demand.

Nigel Farage's pledge to “reopen” the Port Talbot blast furnaces may sound bold, but it’s not a serious plan — it’s a populist soundbite with no grounding in economic reality. The furnaces were decommissioned in 2024, and industry experts have made it clear: they cannot simply be turned back on. Rebuilding them from scratch would cost up to £3 billion — far beyond the means of the Welsh Government or any vague “ambition” from Reform UK. Port Talbot is still producing steel today, using imported slabs. What Farage offers is nostalgia, not strategy. What Farage also fails to mention is that Wales already has an extensive network of regional technical colleges and further education providers delivering exactly the kind of vocational training he claims to support — from welding and electrical trades to automation and engineering. These institutions are doing vital work. The deeper problem isn’t training, it’s retention. Too many skilled young people leave Wales because they don’t see any viable long-term careers where they grew up. This is the real problem: a persistent brain drain that no amount of rhetoric can fix without meaningful, place-based investment. Crucially, Farage will never in a million years Wales core problem: Our economic dependency on England, a legacy of centuries of extraction, under-investment, and decision-making power concentrated elsewhere. If anything, his approach reinforces that dependency, offering centralised promises from London rather than empowering Welsh communities to control their own economic future. The transformation Wales needs won’t come from Westminster-based populists who drop in with soundbites and leave with votes. What Wales needs is real innovation, high-value industries, and a future that includes white-collar jobs and start-ups — not just factories, re-opening coal mines, warehouses and call centres. We all want to see places like Port Talbot thrive. But the future won’t be secured by political performances or by romanticising a past that cannot return. It will be built through practical investment, local control, and a commitment to making sure people can live, work, and stay in the communities they love — without needing to leave Wales behind.

but are too weak from hunger and ignorance to risk rocking the boat...

I'm sure the good people of Port Talbot will be very grateful to Farage's plans to poison their atmosphere once more. How much has air quality improved since the closure of the last blast furnace?

Are you referring to Adrian's posts?

Ian Michael Williams, do you support the lead Reform UK candidates in South Wales East? They will be Ed Sumner and Llyr Powell and they will be announced at the last minute. Do you support the lead candidates in South Wales West, Caroline Jones and T. Alun Williams? Do you think they have the ability to carry this plan off in the Senedd?

This statement is just like his TV station - only for subscribers to lies.

Two false statements in this presentation, child poverty and unemployment are not the worst in the UK as he stated.

Could have offered to develop a hydrogen blast furnace and make Swansea Uni a leading research institution on the tech ... but no, he went for the nostalgic snake oil sales pitch. Twll din.

At least he admitted that Cardiff Bay's hands are tied by Westminster in terms of big changes like building new blast furnaces. If hands are tied for steel, they're tied for all major economic improvements. So even Nige agrees it's all Westminster's fault.

A man who hates governments existence, would rip it to shreds if gained power, would spend taxpayers money against his belief. Only the stupid believe a word this grifter ex casino banker says.

It's not only incredibly scary that Reform disrespect our country's culture enough to stand in Wales, its incredibly scary that there are enough gullible people to believe such an obvious liar.

A fly-by-night character.

Farage is cloud cuckoo land. What next? Welsh children being put up chimneys. Taking pit ponies down the mines on a 16 hour shift with a reward of black lung. More slag heaps to damage our beautiful countryside that will eventually slide down creating another Aberfan. May I remind Farage that when Wales was the equivalent of an oil rich state were gang raped of our resources by Whitehall when they sold Wales to the highest bidder and we didn't benefit one iota. Look around you. Can you see the skyscrapers. The vast estates built. No. Those coal mining areas we blighted and polluted by heavy industry and its people paid the price with their lives, my grandfather a miner who died of pneumoconiosis (or black lung). And if he learned his Welsh history would know the very town he preyed on like a poverty predator, namely Merthyr Tydfil, there were riots because of low pay inhumane conditions endured. The good decent people of Merthyr want clean safe jobs not a return to the days of the pit master, you bloody French fool! And prey Nigel who will own these new coal mines opened and where's the money coming from? Certainly not from Whitehall who had already screwed Wales of multiple billions twice with the England & Wales slight HS2 and the Oxford to Cambridge line infrastructure builds. Is the money coming out of the Welsh block that's already stretched. Are you proposing cutting departments. Say, the Welsh language, money spent on opening new Welsh medium schools, are you going to do what Trump is doing in America by being a wrecking ball? The UK Government or a private English company. Power certainly won't lie with Wales and the Senedd Cymru if we take water as an example where reservoirs are owned & controlled by English water companies and Wales get SFA. Sorry Nigel, all you offer are pipedream policies. This cynically done to entice voters onto your web like a spider a moth. And if, god forbid, Reform are elected next May will do absolutely nothing for their electorate or Wales but use the Senedd as a platform to spout your hateful little England far-right Conservative crap. Truth be told. #PlaidCymru 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿✊ #RhunApIorwerth 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿👍 #FightingForWales 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿✊

Love the comments. If someone, anyone, suggested what Farage has suggested, you'd all probably be ecstatic. Steel should not be exported, not I'm this current political climate. As for coal? Why not mine it? Contrary to popular (albeit stupid) belief, the days of going down a pit with a pick and shovel are long-gone. Open-cast mining is far more effective and safer. What else are people going to do? A country without heavy industry is a poor country. Don't believe me? Look out your front door, tell me what you see?

Let's be realistic, the proposed electric arc furnace is also not economically feasible given the ridiculous/uncompetitive high cost of energy (in particular, electricity) in the UK. It will prove uneconomical at birth absent massive government subsidies. It is doomed to fail.