Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer will not let the Chinese undercut UK businesses which means he will protect this one household item at all costs
Keir Starmer has gone to war with China – over ironing boards. The Prime Minister may be willing to let the Chinese build a super-embassy in London but he will not let them undercut UK businesses which make the household essentials.
The Government has backed a proposal from the Trade Remedies Authority – aka TRA – to maintain tariffs of up to 42% on cut-price imports of ironing boards from China until the end of the decade. The PM has yet to protect Britain’s petrochemicals, steel or car makers from cheap imports despite repeated pleas.
Russell Codling, Tata Steel’s commercial director, told MPs at a committee hearing the UK’s steel industry would be dead by July if the Government did not announce tariffs on cheap Chinese steel within two months. The steel industry is worth £1.7bn to the economy and employs more than 30,000 people.
Britain’s ironing board market is worth £21m and employs 300. There is only one Brit manufacturer – Minky Homecare based in Rochdale, Greater Manchester.
But no Chinese ironing board will be spared from tariffs which the TRA says will apply ‘whether or not free-standing, with or without a steam soaking or heating top or blowing top, including sleeve boards and essential parts’.
The TRA was set up in 2021 as the post-Brexit body for handling claims that foreign companies were dumping cheap products on Britain. Peter Brennan, trade director at UK Steel, said the body had become more ‘front-foot’ recently.
But he said anti-dumping actions in the steel industry were a ‘whack-a-mole’ approach to the problem of cut-price Chinese competition. Chinese imports to the UK climbed 12% in the five years to 2025, according to the Office for National Statistics.
A Government spokesman said protecting steel was ‘a complex issue’ and a strategy ‘will be published this year’. Steve Foley, managing director of ironing-board maker Minky, said cut-price Chinese competition was only one of the company’s worries
He said: “The other things that cripple us are energy costs and labour costs. The National Insurance increase has been very hard.”
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