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• The UK government is expected to announce full British Steel nationalisation in the king’s speech.
• British Steel’s Scunthorpe plant operates the country’s last remaining blast furnaces.
• Rising losses, Chinese ownership tensions and fears over industrial security pushed the government towards intervention.

For decades, the giant blast furnaces towering over Scunthorpe stood as symbols of Britain’s industrial strength. Now, they are becoming symbols of something else entirely — the struggle to keep the country’s steel industry alive in a rapidly changing global economy.

The UK government is expected to formally move towards full nationalisation of British Steel in the upcoming king’s speech, marking another dramatic turn in the long and turbulent history of one of Britain’s most politically sensitive industrial businesses.