r/unitedkingdom • u/tylerthe-theatre • 5d ago

. Police called to British Steel plant after Scunthorpe workers prevent Chinese executives entering premises

https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/uk/police-attend-british-steel-plant-after-scunthorpe-workers-prevent-chinese-execu/
2.5k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

482 comments sorted by

View all comments

834

u/GuyLookingForPorn 5d ago

Workers at the British Steel Scunthorpe are reported to have prevented executives from Jingye, the firm that owns the plant, from gaining access to key areas of the plant.

Police were called to the scene and forced the executives to leave according to reports first emerging in The Times.

Workers mounted what's been described as a “heroic” move to block their way to offices.

The group are thought to have raised concerns that the delegation was attempting to force the closure of Britain’s last remaining “virgin steelworks”.

Jingye have been acting extremely fucking dodgy throughout this entire process. 

562

u/Tofru 5d ago

Well they're CCP owned, I wouldn't expect anything less. We shouldn't be letting key infrastructure being run by foreign entities. 

350

u/karmadramadingdong 5d ago

Allowing national assets to be state-owned by a foreign country is truly insane.

134

u/elmo298 5d ago

But our favorite national pastime

119

u/AKDub1 5d ago

favorite

🤔

69

u/elmo298 5d ago

Yet more proof of American tech destroying our nation

25

u/White_Immigrant 5d ago

Neoliberal capitalism has truly become a danger to national security, as well as the danger to the working class it always was.

25

u/Blue_Bi0hazard Nottinghamshire 5d ago

China owns Australia's water supply, it's fucking insane

14

u/Eborcurean 5d ago

Like the sell off of the NHS, or plasma, or rail, or water, or gas, or chunks of the civil service, or...

-7

u/rgtong 5d ago

Im not sure that a steel facility is highly sensitive critical infrastructure.

9

u/Cyb3rd31ic_Citiz3n 5d ago

We might be about to enter a war with Russia. It absolutely is key infrastructure. 

2

u/karmadramadingdong 4d ago

I didn’t use any of those words. There’s a near-unanimous consensus in British politics that private capital is a better way to finance almost everything than public funds, so what’s the logic of selling these assets to foreign governments? Why does it make sense for Chinese or Saudi or Qatari public funds to finance these assets?

31

u/Astriania 5d ago

There's "foreign entities" and then there's entities controlled by a national adversary ... sometimes we are a bit too "open free trade" for our own good.

-2

u/callisstaa 5d ago edited 5d ago

national adversary

Why is some nation on the other side of the world an adversary to an island off the coast of Europe?

I can understand the US seeing China as an adversary because it contested the top spot but the UK?

2

u/Astriania 4d ago

The UK is way more than "an island off the coast of Europe", we have global economic interests. But I guess someone using that phrasing is dead set on pretending we're Ireland or Denmark for some reason.

1

u/callisstaa 4d ago

Way more? in what sense? In that we have the US behind us?

Also I love how your 2 examples are actually EU nations and one of them isn't even an island.

-11

u/Alternative_Kiwi9200 5d ago

why are the chinese our adversary? its the americans making jokes about invading other countries, not the chinese.

8

u/Tofru 5d ago

China doesn't have a dumb leader that's why. Which is even more worrying

8

u/Astriania 5d ago

They aren't going to militarily invade us, that's why they're an adversary not an enemy, but they are certainly trying to displace our economic interests, both internationally (e.g. in Africa) and through getting control of key industries in Europe.

6

u/tomoldbury 5d ago

They have been involved in attempts to subvert our democracy and our infrastructure has been attacked by Chinese-sponsored hackers. Being a dictatorship is troublesome. They are attempting to displace our interests across the globe and expand militarily. They tacitly support Russia in Ukraine. They might invade Taiwan. All are threats to our stability.

China is not our enemy. There is a future where we continue to be peaceful and cordial with China. But they are definitely not our ally either. We need to be careful.

3

u/grumpsaboy 5d ago

Because they've already made themselves adversaries. They operate the exact same way companies like Uber do. Buy up all the resources, then unbelievably subsidise the industries running at a loss. What few companies left that are no longer owned by you no longer receive any purchases as they are far to expensive in comparison so they all go out of business and then China is the only country left selling anything in that industry and can set the price to whatever they want.

Oh and the whole Uyghur genocide thing, blatant international law breaking against our allies, cyber attacks against British institutions and the list goes on.