Reform UK leader Nigel Farage is grilled by GB News reporter Adam Cherry on his plans to reopen blast furnaces in a bid to make Britain 'more self-sufficient', asking just how much the plan will cost.Farage responded: "I made it very, very clear. Reopening a blast furnace is no easy thing. This one has closed, that was the tragedy."Yes, it is a massive, expensive job to re-open blast furnaces. We're going to need cheaper energy, we're going to need much cheaper local coal, and we're going to need private business partners prepared to come into a joint venture with government to make it work. "Yes, it is going to cost billions to do it, and I'm not even pretending it'll be easy."WATCH ABOVE.
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00:00Thank you. Do you have a rough timeline for how long it will take to get the blast furnaces operational again and how much it will cost to reopen the coal mines?
00:12Look, I've made it very, very clear. Reopening a blast furnace is no easy thing. This one has closed. That was the tragedy.
00:19That was why Richard Tice and I went up to Scunthorpe when there were literally three days of supplies left, or three days for an order to get made so they wouldn't close down.
00:33And hey, the government responded to that as well, didn't it? Scunthorpe would have gone if Richard Tice and I had not gone there on that day.
00:40So yes, it is a massive, expensive job to reopen blast furnaces. We're going to need cheaper energy. We're going to need much cheaper local coal.
00:50And we're going to need private business partners prepared to come into a joint venture with government to make it work.
00:57Yes, it is going to cost immelo billions to do it. And I'm not even pretending it'll be easy. But what I am saying is, we are going to be using huge amounts of steel over the decades to come.
01:10We have to do everything we can to try to start thinking about being more self-sufficient. And I think that applies also to food production, to energy production, to so many other things.
01:22This is a change of mindset. This is saying there is such a thing as the national interest. We can't rely on our neighbours to sell us things and give us underwater electricity.
01:36We have to start thinking about self-sufficiency much, much, much more. Thank you.