Opinion Piece submitted by Declan Graves:
Brexit. Coronavirus. Recession.
All three of these issues have led to some sort of rise in unemployment or have left a gap in the market. Whether support Brexit or not, Brexit forced all our cheap labourers to leave, leaving an employment gap in the farming industry. The Coronavirus has left millions of Britons without a job. The recession that is about to kick in once the lockdown ends will destroy thousands of businesses. This isn’t fear mongering, nor is it political nitpicking: this is reality.
In the past thirty years, the British manufacturing industry has shrunk by over two thirds. Maybe that doesn’t seem so big – what about 66%? That certainly puts things into perspective for us. Whilst British industry continues to disappear, China has continued to position themselves as an economic powerhouse, producing most of the world’s cheap resources such as plastics and textiles which likely are used in your phone, computer, television, even your Alexa – the global dependency on China for basic resources has led to them becoming the second strongest economy on Earth. Not only that, but it has allowed them to gain incredible amounts of political influence across the globe.
Britain’s growing dependency on China for basic resources has allowed the Chinese state to continually strong arm our government and our businesses into accepting their demands. For example, the British government’s highly controversial decision to allow Huawei, a Chinese tech company, to play a part in manufacturing the components for the highly sensitive 5G network roll out across Britain. Chinese participation is extremely worrying, especially due to a law passed by the Chinese government in 2017, which makes every Chinese citizen and business have to support and cooperate with national intelligence services. This could lead to the Chinese government directly spying on Britain through proxy. In fact, Huawei has already been accused of spying on the United States and its allies as recently as early 2019.
All of this points to one simple answer: Britain must revive its industry if we want to get through the upcoming years intact. Reopening the mines and the factories, setting up new supply lines, bringing back Made In Britain – imagine how many Britons would be employed through this. This would help the economy strive through the recession. A return of British industry may lead to the opportunity for hundreds of thousands of more Britons to be employed. Students wanting to have money for the summer could find work easily. Motivated and determined Britons that may otherwise not have the opportunity to seek employment in the manufacturing industry would be given the chance to lead Britain towards a greater future. Contributing towards ships being built and watching them be launched will ultimately have a better pay off than working in a corporate office your whole life.
A return of British industry would strengthen the bonds that unite all the different communities across the country. So many Britons today feel worthless, useless, that there is no purpose. Who can blame them? Most people have to go to work every day, complete the same boring task over and over, ultimately not even recognising what they are achieving. If we commit ourselves to rebuilding our country from the bottom up, not only will we improve our economy, we’ll be directly bringing people out of a crisis and giving them a purpose.
Now is the time to return our industry – or things will only continue getting worse.
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