On Wednesday, UK trade secretary Jonathan Reynolds will meet US trade representative Jamieson Greer in order to discuss a UK exemption from the tariffs on steel. It’s not that I feel unequal, intellectually, to the task of keeping up with the tariffs, what we stand to gain from an exemption, what we stand to lose. It’s not even that the US flip-flops so chaotically that it’s almost pointless to follow it minute by minute. Am I worried about the lickspittle running-dog nation that we are, abandoning all solidarity with the EU and others in order to carve out a side-deal, testament to our “special relationship”? Well, sure, a bit. Does it look as though we may have to make concessions on digital taxes in order to get this over the line, and forego even the pretence of making our own policy in our own interests? Probably, yes.
But more than any of that – and no offence, steel people – I’m sick of the irrational asymmetry in the way we talk about industries. Last year, steel contributed £1.7bn to the UK economy, or 0.1%, and directly supported 37,000 jobs – neatly, also 0.1% – which somehow makes it important enough that every other geopolitical consideration vis-a-vis the US comes second. Universities, meanwhile, contribute £71bn, and yet all anyone ever wonders is why they cost so much, why they’re in crisis, and how to bring foreign-student numbers down, even though they’re singlehandedly holding up the business model while doubling as a pretty major export statistic.
Fishing is worth just a tiny bit less than steel, yet nevertheless enough that Kemi Badenoch called Starmer’s recent EU deal a “total sellout of British interests”. The creative industries, meanwhile, contributed £124bn in 2023, and have increased their gross value added to the UK economy by a massive 35% since 2010. And yet no one is minded to protect or nurture them, whether while negotiating a Brexit deal that left a quarter of musicians with no work in Europe at all, or exempting technology giants from copyright laws. It’s as if politics as a whole has decided that men’s work is real, and nobody wearing a cardigan or pointy shoes could possibly add any value. But I don’t remember signing up to that.
• Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist
