'Save our steel!' Lee Anderson fumes as just 1% of Labour MPs turn up to major speech

MP delivered an impassioned speech about the UK's steel industry on October 16 - and was left fuming as only five MPs from were in attendance, as he accused the party of "costing jobs" and "destroying" the industry.

Taking to X on Wednesday, Anderson said, upon sharing a clip from his speech: "Save Our Steel. Yesterday during a debate on Gaza over 70 Labour MPs turned up to speak. This morning just five turned up to speak in support of our steel industry."

In his speech, the politician named what were previously hubs of steel production in the north of England and said "the Labour government seem intent on destroying even more of these communities. Just a few we've got left in this country".

The MP for Ashfield also pointed to as an example of what the UK's steel industry should look like, noting that they produce both renewable and non-renewable energy at much higher levels.

Anderson continued: "Our country ... was built on coal and steel, throughout the Midlands and the north, we drove the Industrial Revolution. We used to export steel, we'd export coal. And now We've gone backwards in this country. China's making over a billion tonnes of steel per year, we're making about 5.6 tonnes of steel.

"China, by the way, are world leaders in renewables, yet they're still opening coal fired power stations in order to make steel which they can export all around the world. We are actually, if you think about it,

"We're quite happy to import steel, and products made from steel, from 60 or 70 countries around the world that have been made with glass furnaces, but we're saying we can't do it here. I think that's hypocrisy of the highest level."

Fellow Reform MP echoed this sentiment, emphasising that "steel is of vital national importance and crucial to our economy".

Tice warned of the consequences of closing steel blast furnaces in Scunthorpe, which would make the UK "one of two countries in the entire G20 to not have blast furnaces".

He added: "It's all very well for those who believe in free markets and globalisation saying, 'Well you can just buy it from elsewhere', but what happens if the sun's not shining?

"Some terrible event goes on in the world and we can't buy steel from elsewhere; that exposes us because actually steel is strategically important."

This comes amid fears Labour will see to the , notably the plant in Scunthorpe, after scrapping their £28 billion green investment pledge.

However, the party says it remains committed to spending £3 billion on the steel industry over a period of five years, rather than the originally-planned decade.