Britain looks set to become not just the first country to industrialise, but the first to completely de-industrialise 101 An empty factory Matthew Lynn 26 October 2025 1:27pm GMT Matthew Lynn
Queen Elizabeth II started her long reign, and Dwight Eisenhower was elected President of the United States:1952 seems like a very long time ago, and almost everything has changed out of all recognition since then. Still, one thing is the same. British car production has now fallen all the way back to levels last seen that year. Likewise, cement production is back to 1950s levels as well. Industry is collapsing all around us – and that is rapidly turning into a national emergency.
According to the latest figures from the Society for Motor Manufacturers and Traders, the number of cars made in the UK fell by another 35pc last month, hitting a 73-year low. The cyber attack that shut the lines at Jaguar Land Rover triggered the latest fall, but it has been steadily declining for years now. Likewise, last month the Mineral Products Association reported that cement production had fallen to 1950s levels. The tyre manufacturer Pirelli last week said it was “temporarily” closing two tyre factories in Staffordshire and Cumbria. Funnily enough, it turns out that when you don’t make any cars you don’t need many tyres either. At the end of September, Wedgewood suspended production at its factory for 90 days.
The list goes on and on. With every week that passes, another couple of factories close their doors. The UK is experiencing a wave of deindustrialisation that is unprecedented in any developed country.
And yet if you rewind by only a few years, Britain had a healthy manufacturing sector. It accounted for 12 per cent of GDP, a similar level to countries such as France, and with world-class niches such as chemicals, defence and life sciences. It was profitable, and sustained lots of well-paid blue collar jobs.
It is perfectly clear what has gone wrong. Our obsession with Net Zero targets has left us with industrial energy prices that are twice those in France, and four times the US. The government has piled on extra taxes, from extra National Insurance for employers, to carbon levies, to landfill taxes that hit manufacturers harder than anyone. And planning rules make it impossible to build plants where they are needed.
Add it all up, and the UK has become an impossible place to make anything. Factories that survived a couple of world wars, the inflationary turmoil of the 1970s, and the Thatcher reforms of the 1980s, are finally giving up.
Right now, the Labour Government does not seem in the least interested in the catastrophe. Sure, it came up with an “industrial strategy” over the summer that set out a handful of priorities, and there is some belated recognition that the soaring cost of energy is a problem, even if no one has managed to convince the Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband. But there is no sense of urgency, or any sign it is a priority.
That is going to prove a huge mistake. Once factories close down, we should not kid ourselves that they are ever going to re-open. The skilled workforce will have moved on to other jobs, or else taken early retirement. Likewise, once market share is sacrificed, we shouldn’t expect it ever to be clawed back again. Manufacturing is a fiercely competitive global industry, with Chinese companies taking more and more of the market and rising countries such as Vietnam or India expanding rapidly all the time. The US, behind its new tariff wall, is turning itself into a manufacturing nation again. There will be plenty of foreign rivals stepping into every market that British companies are forced out of. By the time we get around to lowering our energy costs, or cutting some of the carbon levies, it will be too late. The industrial base will be lost forever.
All we get right now are short-term, half-baked measures. Half the steel industry has already been taken into effective state control, and will be kept alive with subsidies at least for a year or two. The auto manufacturers have been offered loans, although it is a mystery how they will ever be paid back.
That is not even close to good enough. Instead, the government needs to recognise that the accelerating collapse of manufacturing is a national emergency. It needs to lower energy costs, and if that means re-opening the North Sea or even fracking, so be it. It needs to scale back the carbon levies, and lower employment taxes. There is not a major developed economy in the world that does not manufacture – but right now, Britain looks set to become not just the first country to industrialise, but the first to completely de-industrialise as well. The last working-class hero in England. Clio the cat, ? July 1997 - 1 May 2016 Kira the cat, ? ? 2010 - 3 August 2018 Jasper the Ruffian cat ??? - 4 November 2021 Georgina the cat ???-4 December 2025
Re: British industry is now in terminal decline, killed by expensive energy
"Instead, the government needs to recognise that the accelerating collapse of manufacturing is a national emergency. It needs to lower energy costs, and if that means re-opening the North Sea or even fracking so be it."
As I recall the UK still produces about half " it's" gas except it isn't "it's" because production is owned by private companies who sell on the open (European) market. Power prices are tied to the price of gas...and because the UK buys on the spot market on a " super-efficient" no-storage capacity just-in-time "philosophy" it also pays a huge premium to buy, ummm... "it's own" gas too.
In other words the above is all bollox. Increasing fracking and North sea oil production will do nothing to reduce UK energy costs but will merely give private companies more profit.
Nationalising production and setting long term contracts would be the only way. Can you really see that happening in the already insanely privatised UK which is about to give the reigns to the corporate interests frog King Farage who will finish the job?
Re: British industry is now in terminal decline, killed by expensive energy
Tim Watkins, the bloke that writes the doom articles, reported last year and this that auctions of oil and gas licences flopped. The energy cost of energy for what's left in the N Sea and the Atlantic is too high.
I remember that the energy contracts that Russia had with Germany et al. were supposed to be put in the spot market too but the Russians wouldn't have it, because it was a blatant manoeuvre to enrich middlemen at the expense of the supplier and user. The last working-class hero in England. Clio the cat, ? July 1997 - 1 May 2016 Kira the cat, ? ? 2010 - 3 August 2018 Jasper the Ruffian cat ??? - 4 November 2021 Georgina the cat ???-4 December 2025
Re: British industry is now in terminal decline, killed by expensive energy
Well what's "right" with it? Total Neoliberal bullshit academy..we need to recognise our degree of exposure it really doesn't require "all ze Leetle von Bruans!" Just get the puritans and the green-wellied to recognise it heh?..."Woke" it wasn't it has never been awake!
Re: British industry is now in terminal decline, killed by expensive energy
Then? Solar power of some kind (where appropriate) on all new builds and public buildings..reduce nightime use, increase insulation, subsidise/fund self-build projects, more tidal, increase technological efficency...become human beings?
Re: British industry is now in terminal decline, killed by expensive energy
Solar power...it's the tokenism I hate. Every new build I see has a few stupid panels on a huge big roof...like the builders felt obliged to do it but weren't really serious about it.
It's "Ersatz Solar" really, which is depressing because the cost of panels is now so outrageously low.
Re: British industry is now in terminal decline, killed by expensive energy
on October 31, 2025, 1:16 pm
no-storage capacity just-in-time "philosophy" it also pays a huge premium to buy, ummm... "it's own" gas too.