What on earth is the value of Stephen Kinnock for Port Talbot ?

Port Talbot is dying. Tinsel Town is on the edge. And we have as its MP a high priest of neo-liberalism. I watched Stephen Kinnock at a hustings meeting last April make the claim that he and only he had the experience and knowledge to attract the large multinational companies to the area. He had the contacts, the experience, the finesse to do so. And now the multinationals beloved of young Kinnock have turned their back on Port Talbot. Port Talbot has for its MP a representative so remote, so distant that I sense the electorate falling into the pied piper steps of Nigel Farage. There is smell of Weimar in Aberavon and Sandfields.

Stephen Kinnock is of the political elite, he worships at the shrine of globalisation, yet he can do nothing to help the ordinary people of the Sandfields and the surrounding area of Port Talbot and Neath. Yet it is Stephen Kinnock and his ilk who have promoted the values of free trade and of globalisation. This is why the death of Port Talbot and its Steel works becomes inevitable and there is nothing that such a representative can do, his world view, his outlook and his belief prevents it. Stephen Kinnock and his globalist followers have created a world where 62 people have the same wealth as the bottom 3.5 billion where the top 1% own more wealth than the other 99%.

For many years the old Port Talbot Borough Council did nothing to hold the Steel Industry accountable for the pollution of the area. Of Steel towns around the world Port Talbot was one of the most polluted and the dominant family that controlled the council had neither the ability or the understanding or courage to challenge and raise the issues required and the actions necessary. I remember seeing on the window sills and in the classrooms of the schools, the rows of inhalers.......We need politicians that are anti globalist, that promote local businesses and supplier`s, that understand that that if each small and medium business took on more workers we would have stable more sustainable communities. Politicians who understand that we must stand up to the large multi nationals that imprison, control and hypnotise us. Politicians that do not use the migrant crisis to hide their real intentions. Politicians who build united communities that are inclusive, tolerant and freethinking.

Then we have the coming of Stephen Kinnock and his accolites, the voting figures drop, the communities wilter, we have the rise of austerity and then we have the Siren of UKIP calling for us to leave the European Union. Leaving Europe will speed up the decline of the Steel Industry. However bad Europe is, the North Atlantic Free Trade association is worse.

Local Neath Port Talbot Green Party reacts to todays decision on the future of the Port Talbot Steel industry and the earlier news that more than 1000 jobs are to be lost in South Wales steel making is devastating for the local economy, the supply chain and the affected communities.
Alice Hooker Stroud, leader of the Wales Green Party said;
"The loss of 1050 jobs will be devastating to families and local communities in Port Talbot but is also extremely short sighted. The renewable energy infrastructure we need to provide us with clean, green electricity - as demanded by the Wales Green Party - will require steel. Instead of importing that steel from other countries, increasing carbon emissions globally, we should be using steel manufactured in Wales. We need to look at ways of making the steel industry more energy efficient to reduce its environmental impact."
The Welsh government has had 11 years notice of these job losses, and now it pleads impotence. Carwyn Jones must take action now to prevent future losses. The market will not solve the problem, changing state aid rules will.
Cheap Chinese Steel has been flooding the UK market for some years now. This steel is being sold at a loss, and the EU needs to step in urgently if we are not to lose steel-making capability in Wales.
One thing which is not being discussed is the effect of steel making industries on pollution. If we buy steel from China we not only create the associated, and higher, pollution Chinese people have to suffer, we increase CO2 through the transportation of the product halfway round the world.
his is why steel making needs to stay in Wales. It is less polluting, our standards our higher, and it is delivered locally. We must ask Welsh businesses to support Welsh steelmaking, and ask Welsh consumers to buy Welsh products. It will be cheaper in the long run as we ensure that 1000’s of jobs are saved and our communities remain intact.
China produces as much steel as the rest of the world combined. As China’s growth slows, the excess steel that Chinese industry doesn’t need is being marketed overseas, filling Chinese coffers with desirable foreign currency.

The Welsh government needs to be looking urgently at how to develop renewable energy schemes, predicted to be worth billions of pounds to the Welsh economy and would create thousands of high quality, sustainable jobs that would help communities like Port Talbot, but only last week did David Cameron turn his nose up at the tidal lagoon project.
Once again, the 'greenest government ever' has failed to see the opportunity in renewables, and fails to support local, sustainable jobs in our communities. The Westminster Government doesn't seem to have a long-term view. We need to invest for now and for the future. While Westminster dithers, Wales suffers.